Here is a fun little palce to visit from time to time… it’s a site displaying short videos of librarians reviewing and recommending books they have read. All the videos are 60 seconds or less. Finding book recommendations online is nothing new, but it is fun to see the people behind the review and with the videos it’s fun to see just how much fun they are having producing the 60-second spots.
I can’t remember where I ran across the site, but I think I read that they started the One-Minute Critic reviews as part of a bigger program and the reponse was big enough that they just kept going. Their site says that the videoa are produced and maintained by the Fort Vancouver Regional Library up in Washington state.
I ran across Judge a Book By Its Cover this weekend. It’s a public librarian’s blog that features the worst book covers in the library. Pure torture, if you ask me. There are some really bad covers out there. Ugh! Not sure I can check in too often. After visiting that one I always have to click over to Henry Yene See’s blog to cleanse my palette and calm down. His covers are great and his work is fun to follow because he posts everything from concepts through final work.
Find your elbow pads… the annual second-floor gobbling Super Book Sale at the Vestavia Hills library kicks-off Friday, February 1st at 5pm and continues through Tuesday, February 5th.
No doubt the crowds will be there early, but it’s always fun to go on the last day when they say something like “give me $2 and go fill this grocery sack” or something like that. I think proceeds benefit the new library planned to replace the one on Highway 31.
I can’t imagine going through the trash here in Birmingham and finding enough discarded books of value to feed yourself. Which is about all the money the two guys featured in the article need, because they are homeless. What a quirky turn to the story. I’m not saying them being homeless is a good thing, I’m just saying that it made for an interesting news article.
It also tipped me off to Mitchell Duneier’s Sidewalk, which I had never heard of. But is now on my list, as the author uses these street salesmen to address the “Broken Windows” strategy/theory of cleaning up a neighborhood, which our new mayor has just begun to employ across Birmingham.
