Congrats to the City’s Junior Library!

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has earned a well-deserved National Medal for Museum and Library Service.  PLCHC’s Main Library was recently the busiest library in America.  In celebration, PLCHC is offering Fine Amnesty Day, tomorrow, May 15th.  Having served on a committee or two with Public Library folks and, most recently, watched in amazement as they have multiplied their services and digital offerings, while navigating the troubled waters that afflict libraries here  and elsewhere, it’s clear they’re some of the hardest working librarians in show business.

-Ed Scripsi

On the Way to the Peak of Normal talks Preservation

Intrepid radio host Justin Patrick Moore works the mic

Mercantile member Justin Patrick Moore, who recently interviewed past Merc. President and author Dale Patrick Brown , has just interviewed Cincinnati Preservation Association director Paul Muller about the challenges of preserving modern architecture.  This week, the CPA is having a symposium on preserving modern architecture in the Midwest.

Check out Justin’s interview with Muller here at peakofnormal.org and don’t forget to tune in on 88.3, WAIF, every Thursday night from 8-10 EST.

-Ed Scripsi

Yeeee-HAAA: Texas will be home to first all-digital library system

Texas’ Bexar County Library system is getting rid of its printed books to become the world’s first all-digital library system.  Here’s the article in PCWorld, which places the decision in context.   Despite being himself an unabashed book lover, the driving force behind this transformation, county judge Nelson Wolff apparently had a flash of inspiration while reading the biography of Steve Jobs (was he reading it on an electronic device that somehow delivered an unexpected jolt?).  The news set off a flurry of conversations in the library community where, on a library listserve to which I belong, someone linked to a Thomas Friedman editorial in the New York Times about the radical changes the digital revolution 2.0 (or is it 3.0 now?) have wrought and what it all means for society and the economy.  Yet as this article helpfully points out, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project most U.S. readers still prefer old-timey books.  Whatever the case, I hope that instead of emulating the Apple store, the libraries of the future will keep some bookshelves around as, if nothing else comforting, sound-deadening, cloister-creating décor.

-Ed Scripsi

 

eReaders at the Merc

We’ve added a couple of eReades to our collection, and so far, patrons seem to like them.  We went with Barnes and Nobles’ “Nook Simple Glow” and so far, both devices are loaded with Killing Lincoln by  Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (it should be noted that this book has come under fire for a number of historical inaccuracies that allegedly contribute to conspiracy theories), The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, as well as January’s First Wednesday discussion book, The Enormous Room, by E.E. Cummings, although the edition we have loaded on our Nooks, from gutenberg.org, doesn’t include Cumming’s sketches, or translations of the French phrases that occur throughout the text.  We encourage you to come check out our Nooks and let us know what books you’d like to read on them.  -Ed Scripsi

eNiches, eBooks, and Nooks

This morning, your library ordered a pair of NOOK Simple Touches™.  We shelled out for the “glow” option, which means that library members who check out these devices will be able to read in bed–with the lights off.  That’s free literature and free electricity, compliments of the good old Merc.  We will require a  valid credit card number as collateral against loss or damage, but hope the devices will help provide our patrons with the materials they need, especially items not in the collection but needed on short notice.

Given the historic nature of the occasion–the leaping off into uncharted electronic territory of our venerable anachronism of a library–perhaps we should engage further in the dialogue over the pluses and minuses of this new way of reading.  The discussion is evidently taking place on television, a sometimes controversial medium of its own.  Whether you agree with Jonathan Safran Foer or Tim O’Reilly, the verdict is clear: Foer can definitely rock a beard.

-Ed Scripsi

Books and bloggers and writers, oh my

The 6th annual Cincinnati USA Books by the Banks Book Festival went swimmingly.   Attendance is estimated to have topped 5000 visitors who enjoyed mascot dance parties, cooking demos, kids corners, panel discussions, and some good old face-time with the people who write the books–and blogs–you love to read.   The variety of this festival is staggering:  from headliners with lines of adoring fans to authors with smaller, which is not to say less interested audiences.  The Petersiks of Young House Love fell into the former category, and and Michael Nye, editor of The Missouri Review and author of the short story collection Strategies Against Extinction, reflects on his blog on the meaning of long lines and  different forms in the book festival of today and tomorrow.   The Petersiks also offered their take on, as they put it, “Nerding it Up in the Nasty ‘Nati.”

I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival, with new Executive Director Margaret O’Gorman at a new venue: The Banks.

-Ed Scripsi

Weekend Reading: The Lost Ones

Our patience was greatly tested last week when we discovered that A Wanted Man, the latest Lee Child Jack Reacher Nail Biter, was spoken for – two reserves on the damned thing, so we could not snatch it for the weekend trip to visit the grandwolven and continue to call ourself an ethical librarian.  Fortunately – make that most fortunately – we have an extremely courteous son-in-law who had his own copy of the Reacher which he offered to let us use even though he had yet to crack the cover.  Fortunately for both of us, he also had The Lost Ones, Ace Atkins’s second Quinn Colson case, which lived up in almost every way to The Ranger, which was the first in the series.  We may have shared our concern about Mr. Atkins spreading himself too thin with taking on the Spenser franchise for the greedy Robert B. Parker estate.  We never had much use for Spenser, and we don’t want to see Mr Atkins burning himself out at an early age.

-Nemo Wolfe

 

History Detective Wes Cowan Visits Merc

Last week’s By the Book lecture featured anthropologist, History Detective and Antiques Roadshowman Wes Cowan speaking on books that have influenced his career.  A consummate showman, Wes was kind enough to permit this recording of his presentation.  Apologies for my less than ideal microphone position–the first minute is somewhat quiet, but gets much louder after that.

To listen, press play on the widget below.

-Ed Scripsi

-Ed Scripsi

Objet d’art

Library member Naomi Dallob has donated, and Library president Deborah Ginocchio has had framed, the newest addition to our collection of objet d’art, the oldest intact collection of public art in the city.  This woodcut on paper likeness of the master of mystery and the macabre, by Benjamin Miller (Cincinnati, OH, 1877-1964) graces the left pillar at the circulation desk, and connects visually with Brenda Tarbell’s two splendid ceramic ravens perched atop shelves at each end of the reading room.

His grim stare is meant to inspire fear in overdue borrowers of library books.

Thanks Naomi and Deborah!

-Ed Scripsi

Jeff Suess: Renaissance Man

Jeff  Suess, who helms the Mercantile’s Graphic Novel Reading Group, has published a story in Torn Realities, a  collection of Lovecraftian (Lovecrafty?) stories put out by Cincinnati’s own Post Mortem Press.  Jeff also writes a weekly column, “Our History”, for Cincinnati’s own Enquirer.

-Ed Scripsi