Chapter 173 While the Cat’s Away . . .

. . . the mice will play.

While I was away reading books and relaxing with longtime friends last weekend, Tom and Huck were off having a weekend away of their own.

Were they catching up on sleep and quietly reading, too? Don’t count on it.

Here are some photos of Tom and Huck and what they did on a camping trip with Thoughtful Husband while I was away — archery!

Sorry the photos are so small. I’m having trouble uploading images today and I can’t figure out why.

I am so happy that they do these things when I am not around. Had I been there I would have been neurotically repeating myself (”Why can’t you guys just read a book about archery? I think there’s archery in Robin Hood.” Or, “Be careful. It looks like fun until someone loses an eye.”) and getting no reaction other than smirks and deliberate faux-aiming of arrows at someone’s eye.

Thoughtful Husband realizes my over-protective tendencies and makes sure to fit in such activities when I am not here to sound like the overcautious mother I am.

Chapter 172 Replace the Word “Newspapers” with “Books”

This 100+ year-old newspaper has been around for a long time.

I realize my recent rants about the technification of libraries is a bit, er, pessimistic. (Is “technification” a word? I don’t know, but I like it, so it stays.) I really dislike whining and hand-wringing, and I was reminded of that when I read the essay to which I’m linking below.

The essay is about the supposed imminent demise of newspapers. Many in the print media decry the “replacement” of printed newspapers by digital media (much in the same way many booksellers –including me, at times — rail against the digitization of books). Jon Carroll, the author of the essay, has a contrarian view. When you read the essay, replace the word “newspapers” with the word “books”. When I did that, I felt a whole lot more optimistic about the survival of those other printed objects, books.

Click here to read the essay.

Chapter 171 The British Library — It’s a Groovy Place for a Frappuccino

It’s not only in American universities that libraries are being transformed from solitary spaces of scholarly study to swingin’ hip spots for socializing.

Thanks to the blog, Weekend Stubble, I read a post today entitled, “Kids These Days”. The title reminded me of the cranky post I wrote about libraries last week, when I actually found myself using the phrase, “These kids today . . .” so I read it. In his post, Paul Collins, the author of Weekend Stubble, linked to an article about the long lines of people waiting daily to gain entry to the British Library Reading Room. At first glance, I thought with relief, “At least in England, people are reading real books and are clamoring to see primary sources.”

Then I read the article Weekend Stubble mentions in its entirety and the comments following it.

Favorite quote:

The historian Tristram Hunt said that it was a scandal that it was impossible to get a seat after 11am when students were there. Many people travelling from outside London complain that they cannot get to the buidling any earlier. “Students come in to revise [papers] rather than to use the books,” he said. “It’s a ‘groovy place’ to meet for a frappuccino. It’s noisy and it’s undermining both the British Library’s function, as books take longer to get, and the scholarly atmosphere.”

Ashamedly, I admit that despite my passionate feelings about libraries and books, I have never been to the British Library — although I did visit the British Museum way back in 1990, when the British Library was housed there. Based on what I read in this article, I have a couple of different thoughts.

Should undergraduates get access to rare books? Of course they should, because if they never see them, how will they know about them? I, too, was deprived of the very idea of antiquarian books during my undergraduate years, even though I worked in my university’s library. That said, rare book reading rooms should be reserved for just what their name infers — reading. No internet surfing, no group projects, and no coffee. It seems to me that, in more than one library, books are de-emphasized in order to promote cafe culture, collaborative academic projects, and computers.

Those are just my two cents, for what it’s worth. I apologize for the excessive alliteration today. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

See you in the stacks! (What’s that? You say you can’t find the stacks? They’re over there, behind the frappuccino counter.)

Chapter 170 Lucky Break, or Why I Love California

It’s 11:40 p.m. on Sunday night and I recently returned home from a weekend away to a large stack of mail and phone messages, so this post will have to be short.

I just re-read my last two posts (the ones on the new “Media Commons” at my old university and on Chrislands and ABE). Boy, do I sound cranky. It’s lucky for me I got a break over the weekend. It was time to step back and gain some perspective.

I went with some of my oldest and dearest friends (some of whom I’ve known since I was nine years old) to Calistoga for the weekend. Calistoga is in California’s wine country — in the Napa Valley area. It has picturesque vineyards, fun shops, and restaurants with some of the best food in the United States. The weather is beautiful and it is the perfect small-town place to just relax and enjoy visiting with friends over a delicious meal.

The main street in downtown Calistoga, CA.

The tower at Peju Winery in Rutherford. We tasted wine here and walked all around the lovely grounds.

I haven’t visited this part of California (which is only about 90 minutes from my house) for about two years, so it was such a treat to be with good friends and to get away for a couple of days. I wish I could say I visited more, but I still feel very lucky to be able to take a break from everything in such a beautiful place that is so close to home.

I still don’t like the name “Media Commons” and I’m still not sure about ABE’s purchase of Chrislands, but I feel a bit more relaxed and ready to get down to work.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a bookish post.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter 169 The University Library — A Monument to Books?

Today, I realized that I am getting old.

Today, I began to grumble about how much easier college students have it than I did when I was in college.

Grumbling about “these kids today” is never a sign of youthfulness. When I was teaching, I hated it when the veterans used to grumble about “these kids today”, with little empathy for all that modern adolescence put “these kids” through.

Today I caught myself referring to “these kids today …”

Sigh.

I visited my alma mater today with one of my best friends. We both graduated from Santa Clara University, and were excited to return for a visit to see the new and improved library, which is now also called the Media Commons. The new Media Commons just opened last month. Does it bother you as much as it does me that the “lib” or “book” root that is present in the word “library” is missing from the words “Media Commons”? These students today (there I go again) have all the luxuries of a new building and new technology, but they also seem to have less accessibility to books.

The preceding statement makes me feel cranky and old, like the world which was previously my personal oyster is a world that has been swallowed whole by a bigger fish.

It’s a far cry from the small library we had back in the late 1980s. For one thing, they removed all of the really uncomfortable, 60s/modern orange couches in the study lounge. Now there are small rooms for private study groups, and leather couches. For another thing, the stacks — shelved books — were in the basement and were a great place to get lost browsing or studying in one of the carrels. Many of the books are now housed in an “automated retrieval area.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant when we arrived, but now I know. I’ll get to that later.

When we entered, the first thing we noticed was that the library now houses a cafe, and — heresy — eating is allowed inside the library! We saw many study areas with bright and shiny flatscreen computers. A far cry from the computer lab with about 100 computers that sufficed for all undergraduates back in our day. Of course, back in our day, not everyone had her own personal computer, and using a typewriter was also still acceptable. (Ugh, now I sound really old!)

Below is a view of what we saw when we entered the library.

It’s a lovely space. Bright, open, airy, with comfortable seating for visiting, drinking a latte, and working on a laptop. So, what’s wrong with this picture?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see books in this picture. I see good coffee, stylish furniture, and computers. It’s like Starbucks on steroids. I half-expected to hear coffee-house acoustic guitar music in the background. This look is not bad for a corporate campus, but this is a university! I decided to investigate when I returned home this afternoon.

Here’s what I learned from Library Journal:(bold type is my emphasis)

Danielson and Salzer, meanwhile, are equally proud of a more “retro” feature added to the new library: a classic library reading room. “In the midst of all the technology and collaborative spaces, we have a wonderful room with 20′-plus ceilings and natural cherry paneling and furnishings,” Danielson noted, “an elegant, electronics-free space for quiet study and contemplation-activities that far too many new buildings slight or ignore.”

Among the features of SCU’s new library:
▪ Capacity for more than 1.1 million volumes (the library currently holds a little over 700,000)
▪ 25 collaborative workrooms, laboratories for faculty development and multimedia, three video viewing and taping rooms, and 1050 reader seats, each with a wired network connection and electric power
▪ Three “incubator spaces” for experimenting with new educational technologies
▪ An Information Commons with computers and support staff
▪ A café (and food is also allowed in the library)
▪ An automated retrieval system capable of storing nearly one million volumes, including “most bound periodicals and lesser-used monographs,” in special shelving
▪ Expanded, climate-controlled, closed vault storage space with electronic shelving for the University’s Archives and Special Collections, as well as a dedicated reading room for researchers using these materials
When the move into the new space is completed, Salzer says about 250,000 volumes will be on open shelves, in standard book stacks, in an “inviting new book area,” with a ‘ready reference’ collection housed on low shelving. Other materials, including the rest of the reference collection, and printed government documents will be in user-accessible compact shelving in the “Lower Commons area.”

First, why is the reading room considered “retro” in a library? What does it signal about the state of the printed book when a university library considers a reading room “retro”?

Secondly, the library currently holds about 700,000 volumes. Of those, 250,000 are on open shelves, waiting for browsers. The rest, from my understanding, is reachable by automated retrieval system. That is to say, one must know what specific book(s) he needs before researching and then request them from the automated retrieval system. Perhaps it is reflective of my sloppy academic habits, but when I used to write research papers, I knew a few of the books I wanted to use, and when I went down into the stacks to retrieve them (with my own two hands) I could then browse an entire section and find many more titles relevant to my research. Keeping the majority of the volumes in an automatic retrieval system seems to me to inhibit the kind of casual browsing that sometimes leads to academic discovery and delight.

I love my university. I received a good education there from very good professors. The library, which was quite small and outdated during my day definitely needed updating. But the books were all in plain sight and easy to browse. The new Media Commons is a beautifully designed building. It has gotten lots of raves in the press around here for its design.

But. Something makes my heart skip a beat.

Am I being paranoid? Am I overlooking obvious improvements to the ability to easily do academic research? Are any of you readers out there librarians or library students who can explain the benefits of the automated retrieval system?

I’m leaving Friday to go out of town for the weekend, but I’ll check for your comments when I return. Please, somebody, anybody, tell me I’m incorrect in my knee-jerk reactions to this new building. Tell me I’ve simply been away from conducting research in a university library too long and am too old to understand how this slick, Silicon Valley version of a library is an improvement over an admittedly outdated monument to books?

See you in the stacks (if there are any stacks left)!

Chapter 168 Progress . . . One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I catalogued three books today. That sounds like very few, but I only had a couple of free hours today. And one of the items I catalogued was a set of 54 postcards depicting scenes from The Divine Comedy, so that one took a while. I consider it progress.

For those of you tired of reading about the trials of writing a print catalogue: in other book news, Chrislands, the company who designed and host my website, was recently bought by ABE. Though several booksellers have voiced valid apprehension over this transaction, ABE’s purchase of Chrislands is not necessarily a bad thing, and one of the first things the founders of Chrislands did was to reassure its booksellers that those of us with Chrislands websites would get added benefits because of the new ABE ownership.

Today was the announcement of the first of those “benefits” brought about by the new ownership. For a monthly fee plus a commission, Chrislands website owners can allow their books to be searched on Bookfinder. Bookfinder is also owned by ABE. It’s an aggregate search site, meaning you can type in title or author of a book you seek and Bookfinder will list sites where that book is selling and for how much. I don’t currently list my books on ABE for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into in this post, but I think Bookfinder offers a good service.

It’s the right of a business to charge a fee for its services, but I don’t necessarily see its ability to do so as a “benefit” to me, since I set up my own website in order to try to minimize selling through sites that charge commissions on sales, and sometimes even on shipping fees. However, paying internet fees is sometimes warranted. It’s the price of doing business, much as rent is if you own a brick and mortar shop.

So. Progress. If I opt in to the Bookfinder listings, new benefit — exposure to a wider market. New fees. More sales? Perhaps. Not necessarily. Many people are using Google Shopping to search for books and a few more use ViaLibri to search specifically for antiquarian books, the type of books I sell. Bookfinder provides a good and viable service, but does not necessarily own the market on searching the internet for books listed for sale. I’ll need to think about whether it’s going to be cost-effective for me to opt in to their search service.

What will all these changes mean? I don’t know. If you’re going to sell books on the internet, you had better be able to adapt to change or you won’t last long. However, I am convinced I haven’t completely understood the internet business model. I have more to learn. I think part of the lesson is selling in several diverse venues simultaneously, such as a website, book fairs, and print catalogues. You should even open a brick and mortar shop, if finances allow. (They don’t in my case.)

I also think that there are parts of the internet booksellers under-utilize; specifically, blogs, podcasts and YouTube. I think that the younger generation, the so-called future of book collecting, spends more time on sites like these than they do on ABE, Bookfinder, or Chrislands websites. Figuring out how to use these free venues to generate word-of-mouth and sales is the challenge. I will continue to think about how best to meet this challenge as my business progresses.

If you’re interested in delving into this topic further, you can read my previous post about ABE’s purchase of Chrislands here.

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 167 It’s All in the Details

Admittedly, it’s taken far too long to complete this Dante catalogue.

You might suppose it’s because I have to do laundry for four people. Hey, you’d be surprised how much laundry four people generate, especially when two of them spend much of their time playing in mud, dirt, and water!

You might suppose it’s because I have to shop for groceries and cook for myself, a hungry husband, and two rapidly growing boys.

You might think it’s because I have to supervise homework by said boys in the afternoon and then accompany them to Little League baseball practice.

These things are all impediments to my book work at times. But I have a significant chunk of time to devote to books most days of the week when Thoughtful Husband is at work and Tom and Huck are at school, so I don’t really see these duties as impediments. In fact, they help me to maintain my priorities and to avoid spending excessive amounts of time thinking about books.

I spent four hours Tuesday cataloguing five items. I’m always surprised by those things which take the most time. It took me two hours to research the five items and determine a price for each. That seems a reasonable amount of time to me.

It took me another hour to find the answer to a question I had about book terminology, specifically, about the words “embossed”, “upper board”, and “lower board.” Who would have thought that such simple terms could cause such a dilemma? Not me.

After checking Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors and Glaister’s Encyclopedia of the Book with no luck in finding an answer to my particular question, I asked an email list of faculty and students from the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. I am thankful I attended the seminar last year, because a couple of experienced faculty rescued me and helped me pick the term that was the best fit for the book in question. That seminar pays benefits far beyond the week spent in Colorado. (What are you waiting for? Apply now!)

It took me one more hour to write the actual descriptions for the five books.

I then spent a good deal of time while cooking dinner doing something highly unproductive: second-guessing my book-selecting skills, my descriptive writing ability, and my pricing methodology. I feel the same way I have felt before the two book fairs at which I’ve exhibited: What if no one buys my books?

As I said, it is a totally unproductive waste of time to bother with such thoughts. I have all the books I need for the catalogue. If I am to sell them, I must devote my energies to cataloguing them.

I spent four hours Tuesday working on cataloguing. I only catalogued five items. I know there is a learning curve when one takes on a print catalogue. It’s one reason I wanted to write a print catalogue — so I could learn how to do one. I’ve let myself get bogged down in small details at times, but I always research the answers to questions that arise while cataloguing, even when it takes time. I expect to get faster each time I do a catalogue. I trust that the details of cataloguing — the scanning of images, researching of books, determining prices, and physical layout become easier with practice.

Usually, the beauty of a piece of work well-done is in the details. I’ve decided to be content with the amount of time it has taken to sort out those details.

A small detail from a larger painted cover of one of the books from the catalogue.

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 166 It’s Raining Dante

I wrote yesterday about some helpful responses I got from posting to the Ex-Libris email list about Dante. Today I went to check my mail box (my actual mail box, not my email) and discovered a nice fat envelope from Blythe Spirit Books in Batavia, Illinois.

I met Barbara, the owner of Blythe Spirit at the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar last August. We sat next to each other all week as we tried to absorb the years of expertise offered by the excellent faculty in a few short days. (By the way, if you are thinking of applying to this year’s seminar, now is the time. Click here for information.)

In the envelope from Barbara were a nice note and several pamphlets from Chicago’s Caxton Club. One of these goodies included a lengthy scholarly article about Dante. Thanks, Barbara!

My Dante books seem to have languished on the shelves for the past several months as I bought more books, attended seminars, and went to book fairs. Then I started a blog and began to write articles for BookThink. This month I have finally been able to make completing the catalogue a high priority. No. Scratch that. The catalogue is the priority until it is complete. The emails from the Ex-Libris list and the arrival of the Caxton Club article today have helped me focus on the task at hand (and reminded me to stay on task!).

Would you like to receive a copy of the catalogue when it is finished? Email me your mailing address at: chris @ bookhuntersholiday.com

Chapter 165 Be Helpful When You Can

Last Friday, I responded to a question another bookseller posted about Dante on a bookseller/librarian/collector email list. My response to his question led to additional requests for the catalogue from other people on the list reading my response. Furthermore, the bookseller who asked the initial question has much more experience than I do. I emailed him off-list with some questions about bookselling and about compiling a print catalogue and he very graciously responded with some helpful answers and suggestions.

Lesson learned: Be helpful when you can. You never know when it might lead to getting to know others who are interested in the same subjects as you and who may be able to help you.

Also, it was fun to discover I could provide an answer to the original question in the post. I usually post questions on email lists, and I rarely feel experienced enough to be helpful to other booksellers (other than sharing what I’ve learned from my own mistakes), so actually having some useful knowledge in this case made me feel good.

I’m excited to get back to work on the catalogue this week!

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 164 Optimism

I’m guest-posting over at The Bookshop Blog today on the subject of Optimism as it relates to bookselling.

If you are so inclined, click on over and read my article. Thanks!

See you in the stacks!