Updates

So one of the artists I mentioned in a previous post has changed his pitch a bit for his photos.
The One True b!X now is offering various sizes and mounting and framing options.
I like it.
I just ordered 4 prints which to me speak of the 4 seasons. They are all 6 X 9 and I plan to show them at different times of the year on my wall, although I may choose to show the snowy branches in the middle of a hot August. And the dry weeds with the blue blue sky beyond in the middle of winter. We'll see.
Having all these choices works well for my needs.
The book by Catherynne Valente book is up to 18 chapters with a couple of interludes and has been well worth my donation so far. She expects it will wrap up around (American) Thanksgiving and I will be sorry to have it end.

Charity is only part of it

Rachel Caine has put an old book of hers up for free download. The book is no longer in print and it is a very early one of hers, but she has added a new and interesting twist to the "I'll give it for free but please donate if you would" scenario.

She says " You can pay whatever you like, I’m not bothered. And if you can’t afford anything, that’s fine too.

If I get a really good response -- $1,000 or more in total donated by the end of 2009 -- I will donate HALF of the proceeds to the Kids Need to Read Foundation."
That's a generous offer and one worth supporting in my opinion.
Not all artists need extra support. It seems that Rachel Caine is one of those and so, she is testing the waters and doing a good deed at the same time. Good for her.

Angels in the Abattoir & The 52/50 project

Musician Thea Gilmore has set up a subscription service where, for £52 per year, a subscriber will get all sorts of things, including a new song every month via email.
This is a different kind of creator-patron paradigm. For one thing, it sets the amount of money upfront.
This is indeed a subscription, a straight sale, not a donation. You don't get anything without subscribing, while some of the artists I have looked at before, are giving their work away and hoping to be reimbursed.
I like Gilmore's music but much of what is offered, the gig and backstage opportunities for instance, only work if you are in the U.K. The hand written lyric sheet doesn't interest me and neither does the set of badges. So I won't be subscribing to this. It is too expensive for what I would be getting.

Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last unicorn has a subscription as well. His is only $25.00 U.S. and he is offering 52 songs/poems, one every week, in print and recorded on an mp3. I only know Beagle for his novels but he too is in financial straits and for such little money, I am much more likely to subscribe to his project.
His e-newsletter, the Raven quotes Neil Gaiman thusly:

For over forty years, Peter S. Beagle has been the gold standard of fantasy, one of the most elegant and genuine writers of fantastic fiction out there. His short stories are jewels. In Japan they declare their finest, most irreplaceable artists national treasures, and if there was any justice in the world Peter S. Beagle would be declared a treasure and be left alone to get on with making magic."

Gaiman also has wonderful things to say about Thea Gilmore's fundraising but it seems to have been on twitter and thus harder to find. But he has paid his £52.

Bone Shop

T.A. Pratt has written a series of books about Marla Mason, Crime boss, Sorceress and twitterer. Someone else linked to her tweets, I read them, liked them and knew I wanted to read more. Pratt has written a variety of things, from poetry to short stories , none of which I've read and none of which is in my local library.

Like others, Pratt is facing hard times and has started serializing a book about Marla's early days. Every Monday, a new chapter goes up here, right next to a very attractive donate button.
He also includes author musings for those of us who like to see behind the screen.

I don't know of any ordinary fiction or non-fiction author who is doing this. I'd be interested to know if it could work for non-fiction. I don't see why not.

My only problem with these serialized novels is that I don't like to wait. I tend to go several weeks ignoring Catherynne M. Valente's book until 2-3 chapters have been posted. Then I will download them and read them all at once.
But that small quibble aside, I think this is a great idea and I hope these authors are being supported as they deserve.

Sound and Sight

There is a photographer, known as The One True B!x who is selling some of his pictures here.. It is good, good work. I believe that he would sell a lot more if the word got out.But unlike Catherynne M. Valente, b!X doesn't have a Neil Gaiman sending people his way, even though he also is good at what he does.


Another way to catch the attention of the public is what S-F writer, Spider Robinson is doing. He has a podcast and he is not shy about stating how much he appreciates and needs the donations that come his way via the paypal button on the website. Robinson does 2 types of podcasts, one of music he loves and wants to share, by a wide range of known and unknown artists. (At least unknown to me!) Cass Elliott is next to Molly Johnson who is next to Luciana Souza. Every other time, the podcast is Robinson reading from his own SF work or that of other writers. Since we have similar taste in writers but not music, I prefer the latter podcasts but it is always possible to fast forward during the former if I need to.

Both b!X and Robinson are offering the results of their talents directly to the public. I would suspect that neither are getting the response they deserve. It's a pity.

A drop in a bucket

Lately I have been hearing of creative types; writers, musicians and the like raising money on their own through direct sales - or requests for donations. In the Middle Ages, artists survived upon the mercy or generosity of rich folk. Then it became the artist, the middle man, the audience. Some musicians, especially folk musicians, were an exception to this. Their tireless touring meant they sold the albums as much as any record company did and probably more.

But the internet has changed everything. The Long Tail (see a post of mine many years ago now) allows creative types to reach out directly to their audience. And who appreciate the audience reaching back.
The first up was this one. Catherynne M. Valente - a writer recommended by Neil Gaiman And Warren Ellis, both on Twitter. Her work sounded like something I'd like to read and I appreciated her practical approach to raising much needed funds. Since her significant other is out of work and she is not making enough to live on, they are in dire straits. So, she is writing a book and publishing a new chapter each week. And asking that if we like it, to pay what we think it is worth.
So I tossed in a donation and look forward to a new installment of the story every week. Shades of Dickens.
At the start, with the interest generated by Gaiman's 600,00 followers I'm sure a lot of people donated. Now, I'm wondering if it has fallen off. And what she, or any of us, can do, to keep interest and donations high.
I can't write. I greatly appreciate those who can. They deserve our support.

I've moved on

I like Blogger. It lets me change my name and change the name of my blog. I had started this as part of an assignment. Once it was over, so, mostly, was the purpose of the blog. I keep another blog as part of other work I do. And that one has a flurry of activity for a few months then sits dormant. It has almost reaches its dormancy period now. So, I think of this long neglected page.

Week 8 YouTubing continued

You Tube is being used by a lot of libraries already. It can heighten the library's profile and send out information in a new way. We don't yet think in a audio/video way very much but I could see some of our more photogenic librarians doing online booktalks.
Or getting people like Nicholas Campbell to not only pose for a poster but do a booktalk.
We can do storytimes online.
Have YAGs create little videos of what the library can offer teens.
Yes, I think there is a lot the library can do with YouTube.

Week 8 YouTubeing

I inadvertently jumped ahead a few weeks ago- I posted a video about The Long Tail. Definately worth seeing. This time I went looking for interesting videos and found one from a PEN Canada/TPL event. Bruce Cockburn is in it, so I knew it would be good.


I also knew that London Public Library had used YouTube for some of the Summer Reading Club this past summer. This is their Week One video.


And finally, although it has nothing to do with libraries, I include a speech by Joss Whedon about why he writes TV shows and movies with strong females characters. It is funny and powerful.

Week 7: Podcasting

I've actually been listing to podcasts for a couple of years now but I have gotten to them by using a downloader - jpodder in this case. I didn't realize that I could use Bloglines.

I subscribed to one I already knew about -Fireflytalk and one I didn't - Library Geeks. The subscribing was not as straightforward as indicated. The URL you get includes Podcast Alley's URL as part of it and so adding the feed doesn't work until you take out the inital URL and leave juts the URL of the actual podcast.

I also don't like that Bloglines does not indicate in my list of feeds which are podcasts, and which are regular websites.
I didn't add any more podcasts because I do already have 4-5 which I listen to regularly.

Week Six Online Office Tools -Google Docs

This started as an exercise in frustration. I could not get it to save. Then it wasn't obvious how to take a look at it as a published document. I closed it and opened it and yet it wouldn't save. I never could upload a picture from the computer. I'll try that later.

Since we have the S drive, I don't know how useful this might be internally. Externally, absolutely, it could be useful.

I haven't explored it enough, but I didn't see any spreadsheet capabilities. So, that isn't really obvious either. Well, it is still beta.

Week Four. Generators. Feel the Power!

This is the results of a mosaic maker from Big Huge Labs. My search term was "library" in Tags.

I also created this one from Big Huge Labs. The image is from Librarian Avengers.

RSS feeds

I subscribed to Bloglines some time ago but seldom remember to go over and see what is there. This results in big numbers of unread posts. That is why I prefer Firefox or Opera, both of which embed the feed right into the browser.

Bloglines now has a new and improved and beta version which I just looked at today and quite like. It is designed for Firefox, not Explorer but it offers several improved features than can be seen even in Explorer. In the words of Gary Price:

+ Look for the personalization options by clicking the
“Settings” link in the header near the top of the page.
+ You can now choose
between Bloglines Classic or Bloglines Beta mark read behavior. You can either
mark individual posts as read or mark the entire folder as read. This is
something many people asked for.
+ Since the Bloglines beta offers various
views, “Remember View” will do just that by simply selecting the view you prefer
for each feed. The current default is to have all feeds stick with one view.
+ CSS Support. If the publisher uses Cascading Style Sheets in their page
design Bloglines will show them by default. Again, all of these options under
the “Settings” header.
+ Also look for two settings specifically for iPhone
users.
+ Finally, Sorting Feeds. You’ll notice this is no longer a global
preference available from the settings page. Now when you click sort Oldest/Sort
News is changes the sorting view for all feeds

(http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/10/02/bloglines-beta-roll-out-continues-open-id-support-more-personalization-and-new-mobile-version/)

Day of the Longtail

A funny (but true) look at the Longtail and blogging and... well, see for yourself.

23 things Assignment number 2 aka "Babies"

I decided to use a couple of pictures of my nephew and my niece, as well as the the weird Baby head from the Art Gallery in Ottawa.

I was looking at some of the mashups with flickr and liked this one - splashr. I'm not sure it is at all useful but it is fun to play with. In keeping with my baby theme, I typed in "baby" as the flickr tag to look for. And got these as a result:

http://splashr.com/show/reflect1/baby/25/

I found this through the Great Flickr Tools Collection.

I also like the flickr colour picker. I chose Doors and Windows and got some great pictures in specific colours.

23things Assignment #1 - again!

I went through much of the 23 things training online at the Charlotte and Mecklenberg Libraries but I wasn't doing it at the same time as they were, and I never completed it. Now I will!
I went over to Blogs Canada but on their first page they link to a monthly Top 10 Blogs list. When I click on that, it takes me to a page from 2005 saying they no longer do a top 10 list. How odd and not exactly reassuring.

Edited to add: As I was wandering about, I discovered an interesting blog by a local illustrator who has done some children's books. Interesting writer.
It is here.

Using Web 2.0

Obviously web 2.0 and all of its components can be useful when trying to get information out there. But in many cases, a critical mass is needed for something to be noticed and you can't create critical mass on your own.
In order for a blog to be noticed a lot, many people have to talk about it and link to it. Searching Technorati shows how difficult that can be. Yet, unusual things show up as bigger than they are.
Yahoo has a site called "Upcoming" where you can post an event and others can post if they are attending. The attendees can then post that they are attending other events and the first one gets posted as an "You might also like" event.
For instance this one http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/185007/ about a charity screening of the movie Serenity has sushi making and Open Doors Toronto as similar events when they aren't at all. The only thing in common is the person attending.
It is, a little like browsing through the book truck of returns or someone's personal bookshelves.

And a happy New Year

Dark is Rising to be filmed

I just listed this as one of my favourite books in the world. I really hope that Susan Cooper is involved in the process because then I have some hope that it will be as wonderful as it should be.
Some details here:http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952563.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Wikis

As part of the Be a fit Librarian, I've been playing around a bit with a wiki and I will be doing more with a group of people trying to organize a world wide event next June. Wiki's are clearly very useful.
I'm also enjoying reading about people's favourites - or favorites!

I've also discovered that there are certain terms that elicit comments in blogs that are essentially ads for their own website. I deleted the comment but can't delete, it seems, who it is from - and that is really what I want to delete. Hmmm