Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
A Win for the Stacks
by Jennifer Epstein
The Syracuse University Library system is facing the classic book-lover’s dilemma: too many volumes, not enough shelves. The stacks in the flagship Ernest S. Bird Library are at 98 percent capacity, the on-campus archives are totally full and dozens -- if not hundreds -- of new volumes flood in each day.
Suzanne E. Thorin, dean of libraries, thought she had a solution. Her plan was to ship rarely used or redundant texts 250 miles southeast of campus, to a storage facility in Patterson, N.Y. Readers and researchers would’ve been able to request books before 2 p.m. one business day and receive them the next. Space in Bird would be freed up for new acquisitions, study halls and classrooms.
But that plan went awry Wednesday night when more than 200 faculty and students flocked to first public airing of the issue, a University Senate meeting. Some held signs protesting the proposal (one read "FREE BIRD"). Some spoke against the move on the grounds that library space had been misallocated while others questioned the need to ship the books so far away from campus. Faculty members delivered a petition against the plan signed by more than 100 humanities scholars, whose fields would be hurt more than others by the book relocation.
Now, Thorin and the library staff are reconsidering the options for the university’s 1.1 million books, as well as other library materials. “We have reached our capacity and need to figure out some way to get the space we need,” she said in an interview Thursday. “We haven't signed a contract yet and we're open to more discussion before we make a final decision.”
Read On
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Dodgers put a low price on decades of experience -- latimes.com
I know this is not about books, but it is about my beloved Dodgers who I am wishing could handle their affairs with a little more class.
Dodgers put a low price on decades of experience -- latimes.com
Posted using ShareThis
Dodgers put a low price on decades of experience -- latimes.com
Posted using ShareThis
Monday, November 16, 2009
A jones for Lewis and Clark
By Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
November 12, 2009, 5:02AM
Wendlick
Roger Wendlick will do anything for Lewis and Clark.
"Do you want me to dress up?" Wendlick said after making an appointment to discuss his new book, "Shotgun on My Chest: Memoirs of a Lewis and Clark Book Collector."
Among his many activities related to the Corps of Discovery, Wendlick is a re-enactor. He portrays George Drouillard, considered the third-most important member of the expedition, a skilled hunter and "a man of much merit," according to Meriwether Lewis. Wendlick plays Drouillard with enthusiasm, and jokes that as a kid playing cowboys and Indians, he never imagined being 64 and dressing in buckskins.
There's much about Wendlick's life that he never imagined. He grew up in North Portland and spent most of his life working as a construction foreman, digging sewer lines, and assembled what was considered the world's finest private collection of Lewis and Clark materials. He did it through determination, luck and a willingness to take risks, going more than $140,000 in debt and re-financing his home three times to buy more rare books.
"Passion. Compulsion. Addiction. It was as close to any chemical addiction I've ever heard of," Wendlick said. "I don't know why I did it. I'm not even a book guy."
The story has a happy ending. Wendlick's books ended up at Lewis & Clark College in 1998 through a sale/donation agreement. They are the centerpiece of an outstanding collection of materials related to the expedition at the college's Watzek Library. Wendlick has spent much of the past decade studying the books he bought and becoming an in-demand speaker and authority on all things Lewis and Clark.
"Free at last," Wendlick said, laughing with relief about no longer living with the pressure of building a collection he couldn't really afford. Writing the story of his passion/addiction/compulsion was a different kind of pressure, one that took years to overcome.
"I started in 2002, and I figured it would take me about eight months," Wendlick said. "Was I wrong. I'm a workingman, not a writer. I really struggled through it."
Wendlick didn't keep a journal or any written record of his collecting spree, which began in 1980 with memorabilia related to the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland and kicked into high gear in 1986 when he began to seriously acquire books. He did keep 90 percent of the receipts from everything he bought, and that paper trail allowed him to retrace his steps through antique shows and antiquarian bookstores and rare book auctions across the U.S. Along the way, he made friends who were surprised to see a man who worked with his hands in the rarified air of serious collecting.
"The Internet has changed the antiquarian book trade, and not necessarily for the better," Wendlick said. "You can't go to stores and talk to people and see what might be tucked away on a shelf. Now everything's on the computer. I think I'm one of the last to do it the old-fashioned way."
"Shotgun on My Chest" is published by 12-Gauge Press ($28 paperback, 299 pages) and is available at Powell's. Wendlick reads from "Shotgun on My Chest" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the Press Club, 2621 S.E. Clinton St., as part of the Mountain Writers Series.
Oregonian Article
-- Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
Monday, November 2, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
European Union launches digital library
(CNN) -- The European Union has launched a digital library that offers documents dating to nearly 60 years ago, in 23 languages.
A way with words: new digital library "frees the EU tied to paper," said Leonard Orban.
All documents ever edited on behalf of European Union institutions, agencies and other bodies will be available in the library, the organization said in a news release.
"The digital library frees the memory of the European Union tied to paper since its beginning," said Leonard Orban, the union's commissioner for multilingualism.
The electronic library is free to individuals, companies and libraries worldwide, which can download documents as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, Orban said. About 12 million pages -- roughly 110,000 EU publications -- are available for download, according to officials.
"The millions of pages now accessible to everyone in the 23 official languages demonstrate the continued commitment of the European Union to preserve and encourage the history of the union in its linguistic diversity," Orban said.
Read On
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Superheroes on display at UO comics exhibit
From the Oregonian
EUGENE -- Ben Saunders is all too familiar with the stereotypes associated with comics and superheroes.
There's the moldy oldie: Comics are "funny books," suitable only for kids.
The next version: Comics are trivial because they're only about superheroes, i.e., men in tights. Snicker.
And the most recent, highfalutin' edition: Comics are an art form, sophisticated, complex and varied, so anybody who brings up superheroes is an unenlightened boob who clearly doesn't get it.
Saunders, however, does get it. The University of Oregon associate professor of English thinks it's high time superheroes were rescued from their low-prestige status in the comics pantheon.
"In the last three years," as Saunders says, "comic studies has grown as an emergent discipline within the academy. And a lot of attention has been placed on what you'd call 'comics lit,' the Art Spiegelman version of the form." Spiegelman is the former underground comics creator who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," his comic book memoir of the Holocaust.
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Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Vatican Finally Shares Its Secret Stash of Astronomy Artifacts
From Gizmodo
The Vatican is holding an exhibit showing a collection of astronomy and space themed treasures, including this 18th century orrery.. I 'm just stunned that these beauties have been collecting dust somewhere, unseen and unappreciated for who-knows-how-long.
The Astrum 2009, Astronomy and Instruments' exhibition is running from October 16 to January 16, 2010 and just seeing some of the pictures in io9's makes me want to book a trip to Vatican City and stroll through space history. [io9
Send an email to Rosa Golijan, the author of this post, at rgolijan@gizmodo.com
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
"Wild Things" Hit the Streets of New York City
A much anticipated movie of a classic piece of writing by Maurice Sendak. It sure would be fun to be in NYC for this.
"Wild Things" Hit the Streets of New York City
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
An Award maybe a little early, but a nice sign of International Acceptance
I try to keep things here on subject as to regards to things that involve books, and the literary world. This post is a little stray from this ideal, and into the world of politics. As most of you know I am a big fan of President Obama. I have thought he was the best choice for President, long before his candidacy was announced. I first read his book Dreams of my Fathers in 2005, and was quite moved by his story. While this award may be a bit premature in receiving, and acknowledging that their are many who have spent lifetimes towards bringing peace to a war torn region, people, and world, I do think President Obama is a fine example of someone who is working towards making this nation, and this world a place where we can all co exist, and fine peace and harmony in our everyday life.
- Doug
- Doug
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Hilary Mantel's Booker prize-winning novel sees off Dan Brown
Thomas Cromwell has seen off Robert Langdon after Hilary Mantel's Booker prize win on Tuesday night sent her novel Wolf Hall soaring ahead of Dan Brown in Amazon's bestseller charts.
Mantel's Wolf Hall, an historical novel about the life of Cromwell, the machiavellian schemer from the court of Henry VIII who oversaw the dissolution of the monasteries, was last night named winner of the £50,000 Man Booker prize. The win helped increase its Amazon sales by 1,500%, sending it leaping to the top of the online bookseller's charts and pushing Dan Brown's new novel The Lost Symbol, starring Harvard symbologist Langdon, into second place. Mantel's French Revolution-set novel A Place of Greater Safety also enjoyed a knock-on effect, with sales up almost 2,000%.
Mantel was voted winner of the Booker by three votes to two, beating former winners JM Coetzee and AS Byatt. "It was a majority decision but it was not unanimous," said judge John Mullan, professor of English at University College London, this morning. Mullan praised the "quality of her prose", which he said gets forgotten when the scope of the novel – a "Tudor soap opera", as Mantel has described it – is discussed. "Reading it for the third time, line by line, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, it's just a real delight. Fantastically well written," he said. "Her inventiveness, the glitter of the prose, is really remarkable."
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
New Book Review by Charles Seluzicki
'The Man Who Loved Books Too Much'September 19, 2009, 10:00AM
As both a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and a friend and colleague of the booksellers who finally caught the often-charming book thief John Charles Gilkey, it's fascinating to finally read a story that I experienced, only a few years ago, as e-mail alerts and dinner conversation at book fairs.
Allison Hoover Bartlett's "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession," is a book about entering a world that is new to her, the world of serious book collecting. Befriending both Ken Sanders, the bookseller who for six years headed security for the ABAA, and Gilkey, who methodically stole from some of the best of those booksellers, she unravels tales of private obsession and touches deeper issues and themes that inform our understandings about people who collect -- not merely gather or assemble, but consciously and systematically collect -- rare books.
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Northwest writers at work: Tess Gallager in Raymond Carver country By Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
Courtesy Tess GallagherRaymond Carver wrote a poem called "Gravy" about the years after he stopped drinking and met Tess Gallagher. "Don't weep for me," Carver wrote. "I'm a lucky man."
The mailbox still says Ray Carver and Tess Gallagher. His Mercedes-Benz sedan, the one he bought while wearing his bedroom slippers, is in the garage. His study is pretty much the way he left it in 1988, the typewriter in its place and the picture of Chekhov on the wall. The books on the shelves are the ones he wrote and the ones he put there himself.
But time has moved on at Ridge House, where Carver died 21 years ago. On an outside wall hangs a copy of a painting by Alfredo Arreguin, a portrait of Gallagher with the words to her poem "I Have Never Wanted to March" on it. It's faded from the sun and rain, but she's going to leave it up until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. Two dogs jump and bark at the window until she comes to the door and silences them.
"Hashi! Peggy! That's enough now!"
Read On
Monday, September 14, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Pawn Stars A Must See
My favorite show on TV. A blue collar version of Antique Roadshow complete with Idiots, Family Dynamics, and Bleeped Out Swearing.. Oh yeah, and some really cool things being brought in to sell/pawn in Vegas!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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