There Is A Book For Everyone

Illustration from: eye, The International Review of Graphic Design.

At one time, not that long ago, books were only attainable by monasteries, educational institutions, and extremely rich people. Painstakingly produced by hand in 'scriptoriums', books were luxury items of the highest order. 

Today, by comparison, it's Bookapalooza. Books for everyone!

It was the invention of the printing press in the late 1430s that launched this reading and learning revolution with impacts that continue to this day.

I think it can be safely said that there is an apt book for everyone - something to think about in situations where gift giving is appropriate. 

Some say that people don't read books these days (the kind with a spine and paper pages that you hold in your hand). Sigh.

That may be true, but they are less likely to enjoy reading a book if they don't have easy access to books around them. Therefore, if you want to give a gift, consider giving a book. 

What a treasure they are, each and every one of them. Just like those of the handwritten variety were in the Dark and Middle Ages.

Note: a trip to the library to get a library card is a good gift, too. Or, if you wish to buy a book, consider a trip to a local used book store to see what you can find.

Happy reading.

Internet Archive - Free Learning

There is a lot of stuff for sale on the internet. Actually, is there anything NOT for sale on the internet? However, there is also a lot available for free. I prefer free, like library free. That is my favourite.

I have written previously about sites that give one free access to books online. Since then I have also found free audio books online, listened to several, and bookmarked more.


Books like:

Analects of Confucious

Once and Future King - T. H. White

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Island - Aldous Huxley


The site I am referring to is Internet Archive, a place unique to me in all my internet wanderings. It is my new favourite place to go instead of reading the news (although you can find news items there).

The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library founded in 1996. It's stated mission is "universal access to all knowledge." It offers "permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format." As a life long learner and chronically curious person, I can get behind that.

This treasure trove provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and nearly three million public-domain books.

In addition to listening to audiobooks, I have also used this site to do things like research early rock and roll, including listening to a recording of "Rocket 88", a 1951 song some believe was the first recorded number that rocked and rolled in the way that it did.

A search for Henry David Thoreau returns 1,109 items. So many items, so little time.

They also have an archive called the Wayback Machine that stores information so that inconvenient truths can't disappear down the memory hole. Not Buying Anything is even archived there, giving this blog an air of semi-kinda-sort-of-quasi-permanence, as long as there is electricity and an open internet. 

With links to collections from major libraries, the possibilities are endless. And free. 

Fill your mind. It's a giant digital library you can access from the comfort of your own home.

Library of Things

Sacramento Public Library's "Library of Things" section. They buy it, store it, maintain it, and share it.

We teach our kids to share. Sharing is nice. People who want you to buy their stuff don't like it. They tell us everyone can, and should, have their own stuff. Millennials, and many others, don't care, and the sharing economy is starting to emerge in a big way.

The Sacramento Public Library recently started a “Library of Things”, allowing patrons to check out, among other things, sewing machines and other items that they may find useful, but don’t need to own long-term.

As libraries increasingly go bookless, facilitating the sharing of things other than books is an exciting innovation for the libraries of the post-consumer future.

Essentially a Library of Things is a space where you can borrow useful items like DIY tools, gardening things, art supplies, musical instrument, cooking supplies, and whatever else the community decides is important. There is also the opportunity to learn how to use items in 1-to-1 sessions and workshops, and meet neighbours.

These innovative undertakings can be part of public libraries, but also as part of a cooperative, or structured as non-profits. There is no reason why a neighbourhood or community couldn't do the same thing for the benefit of all.

We can thank the Millennial stuff-light stance toward consumerism for driving this sharing trend. They want access, not ownership. We have all known since childhood that sharing is good, but this generation is continuing to practise it as grown ups.

When we share, fewer items need to be made, and fewer resources need to be torn from the good earth. I can think of a few things that I could use, but don't need to or want to own. I am sure we all can. Watch for a Library of Things coming to a neighbourhood near you in the near future.

Imagine how much money you could save by sharing rather than buying. Imagine how Zen your garage would look.

Free Knowledge

Your public library will buy and store books and other materials for you.
Illustration: Wendy Macnaughton

It has been a fascinating and challenging year since Linda and I packed up everything we owned into a travel van and moved from the west coast of Canada to the east coast of Canada.

One of the first things we did once we decided to stop driving and start looking for a home was locate the public library and apply for our (free) library cards. A short while later our shiny, fresh cards became the first mail we received at our new address.

They were the opposite of receiving a bill in the mail, a kind of anti-bill. A library card gives rather than takes. I can even figure out how much it gives measured in monetary terms.

Our new library has an online resource called the Library Value Calculator. It "lets you know how much it would cost if you had to purchase" the materials and services the user has accessed at their local branch.

I estimated our library usage over the past year using the calculator. I included fiction and non-fiction books, CDs, and videos. We also use the library for printing and photocopying. We don't need to think about bookcases, equipment or ink cartridges.

The total cash value of our library use came to about $1500 dollars. That is money freed up for other essential uses like food, or power, or heat in the winter.

Perhaps the money is the least important part. What is more important is all that freely accessible knowledge just waiting to be absorbed. I don't think I have personally ever entered a public library and not left a happier and more informed person.

Adjusting to our new home, the library has been an awesome hub from which to connect with, and learn about, our community and beyond.



Note on illustration: "Part of her ongoing "Meanwhile" series, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton spent a month at the San Francisco Public Library getting to know the visitors, staff, guards, and librarians, drawing the people she met and interviewing them. The result is the story of the library told through her drawings and the subjects own words. It's a moving meditation on the important and often unseen roles libraries play in the community, and how they serve the public way beyond books."

http://wendymacnaughton.com

Give A Passport To Everything - A Library Card

“Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you -- and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.”

― Isaac Asimov 

If you are giving someone a gift, regardless of age, I can't think of a better one than a library card. The first thing Linda and I did after arriving in our new community of Digby, NS last summer was apply for our library cards. They came in the mail on a hot summer day, but it felt like Christmas.

Even better, our library cards were completely free of charge, as they are in many public libraries. Free card, free borrowing, free, free, free. How can you beat that?

These days anything publicly funded is being targeted by mean-spirited, anti-community, anti-knowledge governments looking to move more funds into private pockets. Public libraries have long been underfunded, but now their very existence is threatened.

In Canada our federal government has been closing government controlled libraries, and has gone so far as to destroy materials and burn books. 100 years of environmental research materials were burned or dumped in landfills.

Public libraries, while chronically underfunded, are safe... for now.

One way we can show our support for our public libraries is to get a card. And use it. A lot.

Right now I am using my library to enjoy several music CDs, a few movies on DVD, and one of the most beautiful books I have ever checked out. The book is the Smithsonian Definitive Visual History of Music. It is huge, filled with photos and information, and is transporting me through thousands of years of musical history.

The timeline for my musical tome is from 60,000 BCE to the current era. I am travelling through time and space (for free), and humming a tune as I go along.

You can too. Get a library card for yourself, or someone you love, and gain access to books, music, computers, movies, and your own civilization and community.

New Library Cards

This is how we felt when our new public library cards arrived in the mail.

The first mail we received in our rural mail box 4km down the road was from our local public library. Inside the sea blue envelope were brand new library cards.

All those wonderful resources are now at our fingertips. If we couldn't make it in to the branch, they would mail books to us.

All at no extra cost. Citizenship has its rights and privileges, including barrier free access to information.

Did You Know?

1.1 BILLION people worldwide go to the public library every year. 

Compare that to a paltry 204 million people attending sporting events. 

Giving Is Natural

"Giving of any kind… taking an action… begins the process of change, and moves us to remember that we are part of a much greater universe."

- Mbali Creazzo

Never mind selling things, it can be a lot of work to just give things away. But it is worth the effort to be part of an exchange relationship not based on money and personal profit. To me it feels more natural.


This week I gifted our local public library with a wood chess table and ceramic pieces that I made in high school in 1978. When I start to think of how many times I have moved this functional furniture made by my own two troubled-teen hands, I am flooded with images of times and places passed.

I tried to tabulate how many times I moved the table over the years, but got dizzy and gave up. Considering the history, it was one of my most cherished give-aways.

A couple of days later, I visited to take a picture of the chess set in its new library home. I noticed that just inside the front door was a prominently positioned table with a display of several books on chess, along with a sign directing interested patrons to the the new acquisition.

I like the idea of leaving something behind in this place that we have come to enjoy so much.

Reading And Literacy Monday

My current library books

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges

I am a voracious reader. So much so that I have been known to read cereal boxes or shampoo containers just to get a fix. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm, though, which is a shame - reading is a major conduit to learning, joy, and freedom.

In 2008 a poll revealed that more than 25% of Americans had not read a single book in the previous year. Since then things have improved a bit.

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found in 2012 that 83% of Americans between 16 and 29 read a book in the past year, and 60% visited their local library. 

Among those 30 and over, 81% reported reading for pleasure. 

The Nation's Report Card on Reading found that more fourth graders reported reading for fun in 2011 than they had in 2009, and the number stood at an all time high of 46%. OK, that is better, but what are the other 54% doing?

Literacy Facts

• About 14% of Americans can't read. 
• 63% of prison inmates can't read. 
• 774 million people worldwide are illiterate
• Two-thirds of the world's illiterate are women 

From:  ProLiteracy

Turn off the TV, enjoy a good book

Reading and Leisure Time

Reading for pleasure may be up, but little screens still dominate our down time. The 2011 American Time Use Survey uncovered this trend.

Unsurprisingly, watching TV was the number one leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for about half of total leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over.

And then there are those lucky seniors. On an average day, adults age 75 and over spent 7.4 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - more than any other age group. On the other hand, 25 to 44-year olds spent 4.2 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - less than other age groups.

Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied greatly by age. 

Individuals age 75 and over averaged 58 minutes of reading per weekend day (the most for any group) and 21 minutes playing games or using a computer for leisure. 

Conversely, individuals ages 15 to 19 read for an average of 7 minutes per weekend day while spending 1.2 hours playing games or using a computer for leisure.

What is your family reading?

Give A Dr. Seuss-Approved Gift: A Library Card

If you are giving gifts this holiday season, consider one of the most valuable (and often free) gifts one can possibly give - a Public Library card.

A library card is the perfect gift for all ages. Introduce someone you know to the magic of libraries, and the magic of books and life-long learning.

You will be making sure they have unlimited access to reading, knowing, learning, and growing.

Author Penelope Rowlands shares her thoughts on the importance of libraries, librarians, and books.

"Like every author I know, I became a writer through reading. I spent my childhood supine — on the floor of my room or under a tree in country summers — endlessly absorbed by words on a page. I think it's safe to say that I wouldn't have become a writer without free access to a library, whether at school or in the neighborhood. To enter one was to arrive at a feast. I hauled bags of books home in triumph. To this day, I patronize — and treasure — my local library. I think of it as a sanctuary, a respite from isolation, and I value the easy access to librarians, with all their perspective and advice."

Give the gift of libraries, books, and reading to someone you love. Oh, the places they will go.

No Mall Monday

Public libraries are inspiring

I love public libraries. I can walk into a public library anywhere in the world and feel immediately at home. Some of my most memorable moments have been among the book shelves of libraries.

A bad day at the library is infinitely better than a great day at the shopping mall. I think Carl Sagan probably would have agreed:

"The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.  I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."  ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Last year my public library system had its budget cut by 20%.