August 1st, 2012 Brian Herzog
As seen on BoingBoing, the website http://matchbook.nu matches up bathing suits with book covers - pretty convincingly, I might add. A few of my favorites:
The book: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The first sentence:"All this happened, more or less."
The cover designer: Carin Goldberg
The bikini: Kudeta Bikini. $45.
The book: The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The first sentence: "My suffering left me sad and gloomy."
The bathing suit: Men's Swimming Trunks by EUROPANN. $49.
However, one it missed was for ebooks - generic, nondescript, uniform:
The book: The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
The first sentence: “I do not wish to remember these things.”
The cover designer: Amazon
The bathing suit: Submarine One-Piece Swimsuit from Anthropologie. $278.
Posted under Books, Random | 1 Comment »
July 25th, 2012 Brian Herzog
Earlier this summer, my coworker Tommy got the idea for a library art project: mail a letter to 200+ libraries across the country, asking them to send him one of their library cards.
He enclosed a return envelope, and most of them responded! For the next few weeks, Tommy's envelopes, with new library cards enclosed, poured into the library from all over the country. It was fun to see the variety and creativity of library cards.
Tommy's project was dependent on how many library cards he received. In the end, the number he got fit more or less perfectly on one of the coffee tables in the library, so he got permission to arrange them on a table and cover them with a protective epoxy. It looks great in the library, and the plan is to leave it in the library permanently. Tom also put up a sign on the table explaining what he did - the table is very eye-catching, and has already proved popular with staff and patrons.
Here's the top of the table - click to see a bigger image:
Nice work Tom - and thanks to all the library who participated.
Posted under Library, Marketing, Random | 17 Comments »
July 18th, 2012 Brian Herzog
Here is an assortment of things people have sent me recently, or just random items from the internet (so I can clear out my "to blog" folder):
Posted under Library, Random | 1 Comment »
July 7th, 2012 Brian Herzog
A patron called asking about videos to rent*. My standard reply in this situation is to ask for the the title the patron is looking for - to my surprise, she replied:
I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's "The Midget Bible."
I had no response to this. Luckily, the patron followed it up with,
Tim Conway was in it.
Ah, I bet she was talking about the Dorf on Golf videos. A quick search for dorf bible showed the title is Dorf's Golf Bible.
Unfortunately, we don't have it in the catalog - actually, there were no Dorf videos in our consortium at all. She was a little sad, but not entirely surprised. I, on the other hand, got to speculate on the other possibilities for a "Midget Bible" for the rest of the day.
*I know it's kind of just semantics, but people using the term video bothers me (and not just because
it's ambiguous). But even moreso when people talk about "renting" things from a library. I think they know what they mean, but I believe that thought can follow speech, and not speaking accurately can lead to thinking inaccurately. But, I'm like that.
Posted under Library, Random, Reference Question | 4 Comments »
June 20th, 2012 Brian Herzog
With summer reading programs in full swing, I thought this was appropriate. While cleaning my old stuff out of my parents' house, I came across some of my childhood summer reading logs. They're from the Sandusky (OH) Library from the late seventies - I was born in 1974, so these show what was shaping my mind when I was three and four years old (click through to zoom in):
Yay for the Sandusky Library, and for my parents. I hope everyone is enjoying summer reading - it sticks.
Incidentally, I found a couple other interesting things at my parents house too.
Posted under Books, Library, Random | 13 Comments »
June 16th, 2012 Brian Herzog
I was sitting at the reference desk one day this week, when my coworker answered the phone. After speaking to the patron for a little while, she turned to me and said:
Brian, this patron wants to know if it's okay for her daughter and another student to meet at the library to work on a project - and they need to use a hot glue gun.
The first two things that popped into my head were "mess" and "burned kids," but really I didn't see any reason to say no. I suggested they at least reserve a study room, to contain any potential mess and also prevent anyone else from accidentally bumping into it.
My coworker relayed my permission to the patron, talked for a little while longer, and hung up. Then she turned to me, smiling, and told me the punch line:
The patron's daughter is working on this project with a boy in her class. It's the boy's glue gun, but the patron didn't want her daughter and the boy alone at his house, so she said they had to come to the library.
Ha - a totally legitimate concern, I know, but yet another reminder why ebooks will not destroy libraries.
Anyway, the good news is that the kids showed up later that day, stayed for a few hours working on their project, and left. I checked the room after they were done, and it was in perfect shape (although it smelled a little funny). But yay for another library success.
Posted under Library, Random, Reference Question | 1 Comment »
