Pot Luck #56: TXT U L8R - Texting

I text message regularly and made use of text messaging during Hurricane Ike, as well as just on a day-by-day basis. Mostly I text my husband and friends (I have sent picture messages of our new puppy to relatives that live far away...did you know that iphones don't send and receive picture messages?...I mean, what's even the point?); sometimes I just need to send my husband a reminder "pick up milk" or "we need dog food" or "did you feed Lilly her vitamin" because we'll just miss each other coming and going from home (and he doesn't listen to his voice messages, but will see a text). I don't use much text lingo, though. I don't know if it is my irritation with poor grammar or because I'm an old fart or what, but I just don't really like many of the abbreviations. I'll use them when necessary, but rarely do I send anything more than a few words....so what's the point of abbreviations?

Books, Readers and Beyond: #54 Social Networking Through Books

Exercise 1:
I have tried joining an in-person book club. Several, in fact. When we first moved the Houston area I went to many in an attempt to meet more people my own age (as when we first moved down here the only people we were consistently hanging out with were my parents...although I love them, we also needed people other than family to have fun with!). I have a book club that my husband and I go to once a month. We enjoy the people, but everyone is closer to my parents' ages rather than ours. That is my one complaint. There are tons of book clubs in the Houston area...some of them are too far away to be practical (I love Jane Austen, but I don't see myself driving to Tomball...sorry, guys). Others you have to be a particular type of person to be a member (moms, retired couples, Christians, etc.). Where are the bookclubs for twenty-somethings? Hello? I like to read and discuss books, too. I have never tried joining an online book club; I personally prefer face-to-face interactions for book discussions. I always hated the online components in my graduate course work...I can't imagine a book discussion group being much different (feeling obligated to post...wondering if you have the time...feeling like everyone else is showing me up because they seem to post a new comment every twenty minutes...)

Exercise Two:
We actually have a reading group for our teens. We have the kids come in and talk about everything they've enjoyed reading over the last month. With our teens, having a designated book to discuss doesn't really work - schedules are busy, they don't all like to read the same thing, we don't have to worry about having enough copies of a certain title, they don't have to feel any strain to read above their level or on a topic they don't enjoy, and there is no pressure to have something "completed." Sometimes the kiddos will have read the same book and we can talk about it together. Other times they are just excited to share what they've enjoyed and pick up some recommendations (it's like a readers' advisory group...so now it's not just silly old me telling them the book is good, it's their peers as well!).

Exercise Three:
I searched for reviews and ratings for Looking for Alaska by John Green on both Shelfari and LibraryThing. The Shelfari community rated the title a little over a four (slightly lower than Amazon's customer reviews...at least according to Shelfari). LibraryThing users rated the title with 4.36 stars. The reviews seem roughly the same. Some absolutely love the book...and a few think it is overrated, unrealistic and doesn't make sense . I wasn't surprised by the ratings or the reviews.

Books, Readers and Beyond: #53 Finding Books Online

Exercise One:
The three closest to my branch appear to be a Barnes and Noble, a Borders, and a 1/2 Price Books. Where, oh where, are my independent booksellers? Do you just not have an online presence...is that why I'm not finding you? What happened to the days when I could take a free bus to Bookpeople and Bookwoman :o(
Anyway...all three of these booksellers have a web presence.
Barnes and Noble - Quite flashy and interactive, with a scrolling "our picks this week" feature. Barnes and Noble sells a variety of materials (not just books...although I've noticed that their movies and music tend to be on the overpriced and small selection side of things). Also, this might just be a temporary feature of today rather than any everyday one...but "Tween-tastic Artists"...who thinks these captions up? I'm not a tween, but I'm certainly offended.
Borders - I personally like the Borders website better than BN. First, they have a Shelfari-looking feature of new titles...which I think helps them integrate into the online bookish communities a little better. I also believe that Borders has pulled in customer opinions within their home page in a more accessible manner.
1/2 Price Books - Personally my favorite chain bookstore to shop in (although I work in a library...so I rarely, if ever, purchase books) out of the three. 1/2 Price Books doesn't have a snappy, super-interactive website. But, honestly, I don't think they need to be flashy. People love 1/2 price books because of the unique experience you have in each one. Of course you find stock overlap, but sometimes what you see on the shelves can be extremely unique to the community.

Exercise Two:
I did a search for Looking for Alaska by John Green on Google (the shopping section) and found several copies: from Amazon @ $4.99, Golden Gate Bookstore @ $9.97 and Barnes and Noble @ $15.99. I guess Amazon and Golden Gate have used books because $16...I don't think so. Katy Budget Books has a copy of the title for $7.99; Books a Million is selling a copy for the same price ($7.99); BookMooch had no copies available for trade. Amazon has a downloadable audio version for $15.73. And of course Harris County Public Library has several copies of the book, a downloadable audiobook, and an audio book on CD...for free!

Exercise Three:
I downloaded James Patterson's Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports from the Maximum Ride series. While a read a lot online (well, I guess I read a lot just in general), I don't enjoy pleasure reading on a computer as much as holding the book in my hands. Partly I guess it is a mobility issue. My husband and I have a laptop, but he uses it more often (as he is the student in the family) and I don't really feel like I'm in a position to say "stop working on that paper and give me the laptop, I need to read some teen fiction!" So, until I can read it in my bed or while I'm eating breakfast in the morning...it just doesn't feel as much like a pleasure. Instead it feels like online reading...like I do when I'm at work. However, in some ways I do wish that I would use the laptop for more pleasure reading. Not only does it seem more convenient (never getting overdue fines...it just automatically reverts back to the system!), but it seems more cost effecient and perhaps even better for the environment.

Book, Readers, and Beyond: #52 What to Read

I've used many of these resources before to assist others in finding materials, so it was interesting to try it for myself!

1. I did a read-a-likes search for John Green's Looking for Alaska in NoveList, What Should I Read Next, & Fiction Booklists from Morton Grove Public Library. I was not surprised that it was difficult to find a read-a-like for this specific title through the MGPL's lists, mostly because there were very few teen-related booklists (and some of them weren't even geared toward teen readers - i.e., Teen Fiction for Older Adults). I think the closest I could find was an 'edgy fiction for teens' list. However, I was pleasantly surprised that NoveList had suggested other teen fiction books that I enjoyed tremendously (and a few others I haven't read but will have to check out)! What Should I Read Next provided me with a completely different list of titles, a few of which I had read and enjoyed and several others I have been meaning to read (but, alas, have never had the time...at least not yet)!

2. Using NoveList, I identified for the 4th grade girl (using a guess-timate from the lexile ratings) Dinorella by Pamela Duncan Edwards and Edward in the Jungle by David McPhail. For her older brother I also found two titles through NoveList:Kit's Wilderness by David Almond and The Afterlife by Gary Soto. Although, really, for both of these kiddos I would need a little more information - what kind of animals, what did you read lately that you liked, how scary do you like them, etc.

3. For the reader who has read everything by Dean Koontz, I would recommend authors Greg Bear (from NoveList), John Saul (also from NoveList) and F. Paul Wilson (from What Should I Read Next?).

4. Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet has the following series order
1. Allana: The First Adventure
2. In the Hand of the Goddess
3. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
4. Lioness Rampant
I identified the series order through Kent District Library's "What's Next?"

#30 File and Folder Organization

I actually had a really great time with this exercise. The oldest files I deleted were those just barely over two years old that were held in a young adult folder since before I took my position...so I took what I could from the previous staff and refashioned and reformulated the labeling schema and file organization to best serve the needs we have now.
I also went through my personal folder and was able to delete several files that I no longer needed (just a few months old), such as proctoring forms, forms I'd downloaded to fill out but are available on Harriet, etc.
I was a little surprised by how organized our files had become by default or organically developed over time. Yes - there was some overlap and inconsistency with labels. Yes - there was some confusion as to what belongs in what folder. But with just a little clean-up I was able to affirm that I had become organized, that defunct files and folders were deleted, and I have done my duty to help keep the cost of storage down :o)

#29 E-mail and Other Waves of the Past

I'm still more comfortable with e-mail than almost any other form of communication. I suppose I'm just a text kinda gal (although I'm a terribly slow texter on my phone; I no longer regularly IM my friends as I did in high school and at the beginning of college; and I don't really post messages to forums, discussion boards, or MySpace pages). I prefer shooting an e-mail off to folks rather than trying to catch them on the phone; leaving an e-mail is almost like leaving a phone message...except I can delete, edit, rephrase, and reorganize my thoughts in a WYSWYG kinda way.

All that said, I am extremely rigorous about deleting e-mails (sometimes deleting things that I probably should've kept....and then needing to have someone resend me the e-mail that they had smartly tucked away for later). With both of my personal e-mail accounts (hotmail and google), as well as with my work e-mail, I have a series of (perhaps not clearly) labeled subjects that seem to work okay for my purposes (such as health insurance, identity theft, online shopping, family, recipes, articles, outreach, programming, etc.).

If I need to hold on to an e-mail for future reference (perhaps I'm working on something in particular and I need to make sure I have a whole group of e-mails to facilitate an ongoing project), then I'll keep it aside in a folder. If the e-mail seems just like an FYI or a "how're you doin'?" note, then I usually delete it if it holds no sentimental value (like a love note from a J.A.M. would certainly be kept). I do a better job of maintaining order in my work e-mail than within my personal e-mail accounts, but it has worked for me so far :)

#28 Getting Things Done & Other Flights of Fancy

I'm an avid list maker. I sense a great feeling of release (and perhaps excitement) in making a To Do list and checking off everything that I have completed. I suppose I'm a little bit behind the curve in not integrating my To Do's and schedules on the web. I'm just too attached to my spiral notebook and daily/monthly planner to forfeit the joy of physically writing out my goals and visually seeing them completed with the scratching-off motion and aesthetic.

I'm a planner. I love making short-term and long-term plans. My To Do lists almost always include a list of things easily accomplished today, followed by more intensive projects that might find completion in months or years.

I'm a librarian and pride myself on my multi-tasking, prioritizing, and organizing capabilities. This whole ideology behind "Getting Things Done," for me, does not seem particularly revolutionary. I feel I already do an alright job of maintaining an organized workflow, of recognizing what can be done immediately and what is worth a more intensive time-commitment, and of eliminating junk.

I'm thinking that the whole "Getting Things Done" system of "establish[ing] a work flow process, us[ing] 6 levels of focus and the five stages of the natural planning method" does not really prevent one from spending more time organizing than actually doing (which is giving as a sort of warning or threat). In fact, getting a little too crazy about defining your work flow, six levels of focus, and five stages of planning might actually just be confusing the whole matter.