Unshelved - Sept. 26, 2009

Unshelved is a webcomic about life in a Public library. My favorites are usually the Sunday Book Clubs, but I thought this one was worth sharing too. [Note: it's drawn a little differently than normal, because it was done by a guest artist.]

A library without the books - The Boston Globe

This private high school in Massachusetts has decided to embrace the digital age, and upgrade their library to a multi-media Learning Center, with huge flatscreen monitors, computer stations, laptop ready study carrels, e-readers, downloadable texts, and a $12,000 espresso machine.

Sounds awesome, right?

Then you get to the part where, to make room for all this - administrators decided to THROW AWAY ALL THE BOOKS. ARGH!


A library without the books - The Boston Globe

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Flick Chart

I don't remember where I first read about Flick Chart - (possibly Cinematical) but I've been playing with it for about a week. The site presents you with 2 movies, and you click on whichever one you liked better. Each click generates and modifies a list of movies ranked by your taste. On the left side, it keeps an updated list of your top Twenty movies, and on the right, it provides stats about the movie you just chose.

So far my top 3 are The Prestige, Casablanca and Moulin Rouge. But as soon as The Princess Bride comes up for comparison against them, its all over.

(Update: the site is still in testing, so its invite only, but you can bypass the invite and sign up directly using this link.)

OCLC Policy Changes

Last semester I wrote an Independent Study Paper about the potential copyrightability of metadata - particularly in the form of Library Catalog Records. One of the topics I discussed was OCLC's WorldCat, and the unrestricted availability of records to OCLC members. For a variety of reasons, I questioned whether they could assert ownership over the records, if they ever wanted to do so. Just 2 weeks before I had to turn in my paper, OCLC suddenly changed its policy, not to claim ownership of the records per se, but to restrict the way users could use the records. This policy change has caused not a small amount of outrage in the cataloging community, and since the first changes, 2 further revisions have come out. For more information, check out the wiki maintained by Coders for Libraries.

Censorship by the State

I am really upset right now, because I just heard that a fellow library student has been required to take down his blog by his employer at the NY State Library. I do not know exactly the details, but I am pretty sure that they were unjustified in their request. His blog represented over a year's worth of work, and was a good mix of library and personal news. Apparently, his supervisor told him that it was unprofessional, and without argument, he complied with her request to delete the entire blog. Although I might not always have agreed with what he had to say, I am fairly certain that there was nothing on there that was any kind of bad reflection on the State Library.

I understand that he respects his supervisor, and chose to delete the blog rather than argue with her, but I wish he had argued. I think they were wrong to ask him to take it down, and I am interested to know exactly why they think they can tell him to stop.

More Dr. Horrible!

In case you missed it this summer - check out this Joss Whedon and friends project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The three 15-minute episodes tell the story of a wanna-be super villain played by Neil Patrick Harris, his nemesis, Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool, played by Nathan Fillion of Firefly, and Penny, the do-gooder woman Dr. Horrible loves, played by Felicia Day. I have watched it too many times to count, and have been unable to get the songs out of my head for weeks.

Luckily, now, I don't have to play the songs in my head if I want to hear them - because tomorrow, yes, TOMORROW, the Soundtrack for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog will be available on I-Tunes! So don't forget to check it out!

Books, Part 3

I have been reading like crazy this summer. I think I may have read the most books this summer compared to any other summer. Except the first summer I commuted to NYC - that 2 hour train ride (one way) allowed ALOT of reading.

This summer, I read the entire Twilight Saga (we'll come back to that), Fluke by Christopher Moore (we'll come back to that, too), The Eight by Katherine Neville (ok, I'm going to come back to all of them), Four To Score by Janet Evanovich, Final Theory by Mark Alpert, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Fables (Books 1 and 2) by Bill Willingham, Magyk by Angie Sage, and The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman.

Let's go backwards. The Ruby in the Smoke, a YA novel was good. The first in a trilogy of books about Sally Lockheart, set in Victorian England, this little mystery was a quick and fun read. The language and imagery was vivid and intelligent.

Magyk is the first book in the Septimus Heap Series. Another YA novel, this time a fantasy about a family of wizards who must protect their adopted Princess sister from an evil wizard who has to kill the Princess in order to rule the kingdom. Another entertaining story in an elaborately described world with magical spells and fantastic creatures. The only shortcoming to this story is the reader's inability to avoid Harry Potter comparisons. (Note to self - that might be an interesting future blog topic).

Fables is a series of graphic novels in which charaters and creatures from any and all fairy tales have been kicked out of their homelands and forced to live among the mortal humans of NYC. These are really fun, and I will definitely be reading more of them.

Coraline was actually pretty disappointing. I have read and heard such great things about Neil Gaiman, but I just couldn't get into this story. It was creative, and not badly written, but just did nothing for me. The girl in the story, Coraline, reminded me of Roald Dahl's Matilda, except without any of the sweet qualtities that make you love her. Coraline was just a flat character, as boring as she was bored.

Final Theory was a suspense novel that can only be described as the DaVinci Code a la Einstein. The story kicks off with the villain torturing an old man to almost to death in an attempt to discover a secret that Einstein had hidden long ago - the Holy Grail of Physics, the Theory of Everything. The old man dies, but only after he passes the key to the secret thory to a former student of his own. The villain AND the FBI want to find this student, and will stop at nothing to find him and Einstein's Theory. They set off on a nationwide manhunt, while the student tries to piece together Einstein's Theory of Everything, in the hope that it will save him, his family, and the world.

Four to Score is another book in the Stephanie Plum series, and a particularly satisfying installment. This series definitely warrants its own blog post, and I'll come back to it eventually.

The Eight is a long complicated mystery/thriller. This was actually my second time reading this book, which is rare for me. A few friends thought we should try a bookclub this summer, and I was first to choose the book. I wanted to pick one I had already read, so I knew it was good - and I picked The Eight. The story revolves around a legendary chess set and an elaborate chess game in which the players moving around the board from France to NYC to Algeria and England.

Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, was a weird story. I kind of like Christopher Moore, and he could be the subject of his own post, probably after I read Lust Lizards of Melancholy Cove, which is coming up soon in the queue. I'll save more in depth discussion of this book for then. For now, let's just say Moore has a great imagination and a gift for character development.

The Twilight Saga. Ahhh... the Twilight Saga. This could definitely be an independent post, and I might still do that. The series was so much fun. I couldn't read the books fast enough. Then I realized that if I kept reading so fast, they would be over too soon, so I forced myself to slow down and savor them. Like many readers, I thought the last book in the series, Breaking Dawn, was way out there, but I still enjoyed it. Sure the characters (or author) made some choices that I wouldn't have, but it was still fun. Actually, I think its kind of funny - some fans were so enamored by the fantastic story of a love triangle among a teenage girl, a vampire, and a werewolf, but then were so outraged over the unrealistic turn the story took in the final book? Because the story was so grounded in realism right from the start? I really enjoyed these books - Edward Cullen was definitely the most swoon-worthy character I have read about in a long time, maybe ever. I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but I kind of can't wait for the movie to come out. I hope its good.