Two disparate things to post under one short heading. First, this exposition of the idea of the toread tag is one that pleases me. Second, if you like libraries and comics, you need TOREAD Bookhunter. I’d suggest buying it, but you can read it online in book or scroll format. It’s seriously great.
Category: books
previews and spoilers in a 2.0 age
This is only loosely library-related. I remember when one of the Harry Potter books came out and I was working in a library. I realized they got the book early and were just in some weird way honor bound not to reveal the ending, to ration the copies out fairly, etc. That seemed decent. Libraries do the same thing with DVDs, waiting to shelve and/or “release” them until a certain date. Now that entire very popular books like Harry Potter can be photographed and released via bittorent sites well in advance of their sale date, what does this mean for the adorable, if outdated, notion of these embargoes? Anyone who wants to read the Harry Potter spoilers and figure out who dies, click this link.
update: actually don’t bother clicking it since I’ve now gotten word that it’s wrong. Testing spoilers is so complicated. Last I checked there was someone posting what seem like real spoilers spamlike across a bunch of livejournal communities. Rocky few days ahead for people who don’t want to know what happens. Last I checked since then, the posts were being removed almost as fast as they were going up. However, the transcription project is already going well, though some people are claiming that the photographs have themselves been photoshopped to include fake “facts” and others claim there are at least two sets of book photos going around that are not at all the same.
chairs for reading
Two snappy chairs.
– reading and thinking (and putting your feet up)
– reading and thinking and moving
read a m-f-ing book
Other ways to get the message out about reading, in case you’re looking for some. Discussion on MetaFilter over whether it’s parody or social statement. Plenty of cussing, so not really safe for most works.
An Interview with Kurt Vonnegut – Library Journal April 15, 1973
This interview with Kurt Vonnegut appeared in Library Journal almost 34 years ago, it was nice of LJ to put it on their website.
Vonnegut expressed no surprise, however, at the censorship problems some of his books have run into with public schools in parts of Michigan and Ohio. “It’s the same thing every time. They ban something of mine, the ACLU jumps in, loses the case in the lower court, and wins the appeal. After all,” he stresses optimistically, “they can’t win. What they’re doing is unconstitutional.”