Books – James M. Day

The Loft Library Turns Two

I had often read about The Little Free Library project where people build small boxes and fill them with books for anyone to borrow (or keep). The idea is that people donate books so that others can read them.

In February 2018, when my neighbor Lisa suggested we start a small library for the residents of our building, I quickly agreed. We took over the shelf above the mailboxes in the building’s lobby. She created a sign and I contributed some metal bookends. Together we seeded the initial inventory from our spare books. On March 1st we started with an initial collection of 26 books, shelved by author.

Over the next two years, the library’s collection grew and changed many times. Residents borrowed and added books. We eventually added DVDs and computer software. The collection changed and was rearranged so often that I finally gave up alphabetizing them. It seems our little Loft Library has been very successful.

Cars, Beers, and Books

When I last saw Steve Berry at The BookMark in January, he announced that he would be back on March 6, 2020 for his new book The Warsaw Protocol. Last time, I left work at 5:00 pm and arrived at the bookstore just in time for the talk. This time I decided to leave work at noon and spend the afternoon in Jacksonville beforehand.

My car was originally sold by Porsche Jacksonville. I didn’t get any service history when I bought the car and I hoped that the Jacksonville dealership would have it. So my first stop was to visit the Service department. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any records after the initial sales preparation. I did buy a shirt in the shop, so I didn’t leave empty-handed.

Continue reading Cars, Beers, and Books

Steve Berry at The BookMark

The title of this post should really be “Joseph Finder and Steve Berry at The BookMark” but Steve Berry was the person I went to The BookMark bookstore to see although he was not the reason for the event. But I didn’t know that until the day of the book signing. The event was a stop on the book tour of Joseph Finder, a writer I was not familiar with before this night.

I started reading Steve Berry novels after finding one while browsing the Leisure Books collection at Hunt Library. I didn’t know who he was, but the title The Patriot Threat and its story involving a conspiracy surrounding a painting of George Washington and the 16th Amendment intrigued me. I really enjoyed the fast-paced story interspersed with historical facts and conspiracies. After reading, I learned that this novel was the tenth book in the Cotton Malone Series. I decided to start reading the series from the beginning and soon bought The Templar Legacy. I have read and enjoyed all of the Cotton Malone novels and short stories.

Website Recommendation: BookBub

Generally I prefer to buy print books rather than ebooks. However, I own a NOOK ebook reader and I do buy ebooks, especially when I can find them at a low price. For discounted ebooks I use BookBub.

BookBub finds heavily discounted ebooks, audiobooks, and even print books. While I buy all my ebooks from Barnes & Noble, BookBub links to ebooks from all major retailers: Amazon, Apple, B&N, Google, and Kobo. In the BookBub settings, you can choose the formats you want and also the retailer(s).

The Library as Publishing House Chapter Published

Last year I submitted a proposal for a chapter to a book on the 21st-century academic library. My subject was institutional repositories and how libraries were now functioning as publishing houses by providing a platform for digital journal publishing.

“The academic library takes on the new role as institutional publishing house using institutional repository services to manage journal publishing and conference planning. Librarians must know the journal publishing workflow including online article submission, peer-review, editing, publishing, dissemination, and marketing. To manage conference planning functions, librarians need to understand event functions such as presentation submission, program scheduling, registration and third-party payment systems, proceedings publishing, and marketing.

Librarians at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University launched an institutional repository not only to showcase intellectual output, but to digitally publish new and existing journals and centrally manage professional conferences for university faculty and students.” Continue reading The Library as Publishing House Chapter Published