Library Stuff

Recently released biography:

An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege

“Ardizzone’s competent, complimentary biography explains the complicated, glamorous woman who transcended her lack of formal higher education and obfuscated her race to become head of the Pierpont Morgan Library and confidante of the financial mogul who founded it. Belle Green (1879–1950), the daughter of a civil rights activist who was the first African-American man to graduate from Harvard College, was plucked by J.P. Morgan’s nephew Junius Morgan from the Princeton Library in 1905, where she had developed a passion for the rare pre–15th-century illuminated manuscripts that were to become the basis of her work for Morgan.”

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Drinks with Steven

Originally uploaded by mstephens7

Congrats Michael!!!!!

Lifehacker has 13 ways to do it. (via)

Does anyone want to buy a bookmobile?

Zach Sims thinks it will:

“Now, with a single click, users can access reviews, analysis, book information, and more. In addition, they can talk about the book with friends and other website participants, making the necessity of proximity a thing of the past for those looking to form book groups. The new services also seek to replace librarians. Along with Amazon’s backend for book recommendations, the two new services hope to provide suggestions to users on books they might like by utilizing the books they list in their profile. Do librarians know of every book you’ve liked and disliked? I doubt it.”

Oh yeah, I bet that’s exactly what Tm Spalding had in mind when he created it.

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What a great piece. At the end, she writes:

“[I]f you’re doing it for a company (directly) and for money or some other reward, or otherwise gaining some kind of benefit from association with that company, then I do believe you lose your objectivity.”

I tend to agree. My blog is published by Information Today. I write a column for their (almost) monthly magazine. I receive payment for speaking and organizing tracks at their conferences. Have I lost my objectivity? Maybe. Do I care? Not really. Because my readers (supposedly) get a lot out whatever I do for this blog, their conferences, and their magazine and I am paid for doing that. Do I criticize ITI more than, say, ALA or LJ? Of course not. I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me. Would you? Doubtful.

So, if I’ve lost my objectivity or if you see me as being biased towards one vendor over another, and don’t like that, you know where the unsubscribe button resides on your reader (ah, the power of opt-in). But, if you like what I do and don’t care about who pays me for it, keep reading the blog.

That said, take a long look at LIB’s post. We have differing thoughts on the subject and it’s much more important to understand the other side of any issue (which is why I watch FOXNews).

The new Motorola Q (called the QRm) looks really retro. I’ve had my Q for just under 6 months and I L-O-V-E it (notwithstanding the terrible battery life)

Oy vey, here we go again. I should have scheduled my vacation for the week of July 21st instead of the 4th.

Paul R. Pival wants to know why WorldCat lists don’t have RSS Feeds. Great question. It’s a no brainer, IMO.

I wrote a piece recently on my favorite online photo editors. Graphita would have made a great addition. It’s more of a “have fun with your photos” tool. And that I did:

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