Tag Archives: library

Book Talk, On the Web

One-minute Critic

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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.

Book Talk, On the Web

We share no books

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I have never read a book that Thomas Jefferson did. What a bummer! Not one! I was hoping for at least one, but alas, Jefferson read too many French books (or maybe I don’t read enough).

I know this thanks to 17 volunteers over at LibraryThing who cataloged all 4,889 books that Jefferson owned. VERY cool! They even entered all of the third President’s book reviews. The collection these folks spent four months cataloging is the own Jefferson donated to the US after the British destroyed the Library of Congress during the War of 1812. It’s a pretty cool catalog and author cloud to peruse to see what all Jefferson collected.

The libraries of Tupac Shakur and Mozart have already been completely entered.

Other famous folks are slated to ‘join’ LT, including  Ernest Hemingway, John Adams, William Faulkner, William Congreve, Adam Smith,  Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette and Isabella Stewart Gardner.

I wonder what one book (outside of the Bible, they all seemed to own the Bible) all these people owned?

Book Talk, On the Web

Can’t decide if I wanna play

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LibraryThing is hosting SantaThing this year. For $25, you get to play Secret Santa to someone. Which means you peruse a user’s library, decide what book(s) they must have/would enjoy and then tell Library Thing. They’ll buy and ship the book(s) for you and your done!

All the while, someone else is looking through your library/blog and turning in a list for you to get. What a cool idea! Though, it might be kinda scary what someone might send me based on their “impression” of my collection.

The downside, there is only one day left to decide, as the deadline is December 13th at high noon!

News, On the Web

New online bookservice

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There’s a new book “lending” service in town… PaperSpine.com

It’s just like Netflix, except for books. That’s right. The monthly plans start at $9.95, you click which books you want to read, they mail them to you, you read and return, then they mail you the next one on your list.

It’s sounds a lot like a library, except this one you pay for. I guess there are some places in the country that have limited access to books, but I find it hard to believe that this new business will actually make any money. It just seems like a really bad idea. Some of this discussion has already crept up on PaperSpine’s blog.

Libraries, local bookstores, Amazon, chain bookstores, etc. they have a pretty good track record for getting books, cheaply into people’s hands. I just don’t see the “it worked for Netflix and movies, so it’ll work here” argument holding any water.

{via GalleyCat}