Leader's Libraries
Michael Moritz, the venture capitalist who built a personal $1.5 billion fortune discovering the likes of Google, YouTube, Yahoo and PayPal, and taking them public, may seem preternaturally in tune with new media. But it is the imprint of old media — books by the thousands sprawling through his Bay Area house — that occupies his mind.
“My wife calls me the Imelda Marcos of books,” Mr. Moritz said in an interview. “As soon as a book enters our home it is guaranteed a permanent place in our lives. Because I have never been able to part with even one, they have gradually accumulated like sediment.”
Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete.
The article is titled, “C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success,” but I think it’s that last line that’s most pertinent — leaders, not just CEOs.
I wonder how long it will be before we’re measured by our bookmarks.
Posted by Giles, Sunday, July 22, 2007, at 11:24 PM.
Posted to Libraries
Open Library
Imagine a library that collected all the world’s information about all the world’s books and made it available for everyone to view and update. We’re building that library.
Posted by Giles, Monday, July 16, 2007, at 10:00 PM.
Posted to Computers | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Technology
Stauffacher Slideshow
Bill Drenttel wrote to let us know of this:
When I look at my bookshelves, I see my life. Whole glimpses of previous interests are represented, from my collection of Latin American fiction to the many reminders of the years I spent living in Italy (the novels of Primo Levi and Italo Calvino). […]
Prized among these are many books by Jack Stauffacher — the legendary San Francisco designer and printer. So it is perhaps not surprising that when the photographer Dennis Letbetter sent me these 60 images of Stauffacher’s bookshelves, I immediately wanted to compare notes. I quickly spotted his complete run of The Journal of Typographic Research. And more: Loeb Classics, Italo Calvino, Stop Stealing Sheep, Hermann Zapf, Horace, Goethe, James Agee, African Socialism. There are books I also own, and others I only dream of owning. It is like my library, only so much better, and I instantly recognized these books for what they are: a touchstone of someone else’s life. “Without this working library,” notes Stauffacher, “I would have no compass, no map, to guide me through the density of our human condition.” I can not think of a more fitting description of a library, or one that so aptly describes a collector’s approach to the world.
Great, great stuff, including sixty photos — check it out.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 11:05 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Libraries | Photography
NYT: Trying Again to Make Books Obsolete
David Pogue on Sony’s latest e-book gadget:
“The market for downloadable books will grow by 400 percent in each of the next two years, to over $25 billion by 2008,” predicted the keynote speaker at the 2001 Women’s National Book Association meeting. “Within a few years after the end of this decade, e-books will be the preponderant delivery format for book content.”
Whoops.
The opening paragraphs. Should say something — which I’d summarize as a big meh. Read why.
As if we expected differently!
Posted by Giles, Monday, October 16, 2006, at 6:16 AM.
Posted to Books | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Publishing | Technology
British Library on Copyrights
From yesterday’s Ars news:
The British Library has the Magna Carta, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, but it’s still not happy. Why not? Because it has the intellectual property blues.
The Library issued a manifesto today on intellectual property law in the UK and offered six suggestions for cleaning up the current mess, all of which attempt to strike a proper balance between the rights of creators and consumers of content. […]
Overall, the proposals are well-balanced, though parties on both sides of the debate will find bits to dislike. Copyright holders will dislike the restrictions on contracts and DRM, while those in favor of “open access” may be disappointed that the British Library advocates a “life + 70 years” copyright term. Still, it’s good to see an institution with the stature of the Library arguing for such a balanced set of proposals, and we hold out hope that the Library of Congress will one day advocate for many of the same proposals on this side of the pond.
Hear, hear.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 26, 2006, at 9:15 PM.
Posted to Books | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Writing
Artdaily.com on Books
Book lovers and aesthetes alike will often cite the material qualities of a book, the cloth covers, glossy pages, rough or gilded edges, or the personal touch that one can experience through a book’s design — even more than a book’s contents — as the basis for the medium’s lasting significance in contemporary society. These characteristics add up to the overall significance of a book as an object to behold, rather than simply a source of information, something appreciated by artists and readers since the first illuminated manuscript was published over ten centuries ago.
From “the first art newspaper on the net,” Off the Shelf: New Forms in Contemporary Artists’ Books. Cool.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 22, 2006, at 3:59 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book design | Books, design, art | Libraries
Google Books Highlights Banned Books
For decades, literary classics such as The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye have had a profound impact on millions of readers. Yet every year, there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from schools and libraries nationwide. Fortunately, the American Library Association and many other organizations are fighting back with Banned Books Week, taking place this year Sept. 23-30.
Now Google has joined the party. At google.com/bannedbooks, you can use Google Book Search to explore some of the best novels of the 20th century which have been challenged or banned. And while libraries and bookstores around the country celebrate the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week with special readings, displays, and more, you just might end up with a visit to your local library or bookstore and an old favorite or a new banned book in hand.
I don’t even like typing the phrase “banned books.” Glad that Google’s drawing some attention to it — and pushing the use of libraries instead of just their offering.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, September 13, 2006, at 9:49 PM.
Posted to Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Personal | Publishing
"Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut"
By “library smut” I am in no way referring to the photo books on native peoples, or the illustrated health manuals, or any of the other volumes which, in your childhood, you lurked about the library aisle to find with the sole purpose of sneaking guilty glances at naked bodies. Nor am I referring to the “risqué” novels by Miller, Cleland, Réage, or Lawrence you leafed impatiently through as a teenager. No. What I’m talking about here is the full-frontal objectification of the library itself. Oh yeah.
Only one word from here: Wow.
Check out the rest of the models here. Enjoy!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 7, 2006, at 12:50 PM.
Posted to Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Google Book Search Allowing Downloads of Some Books
From Ars:
When Google Print was first unveiled, it was clear that the site would become an amazing resource. It provided full access to books that were already out of copyright, but only if you viewed them online, one page at a time. What people most wanted, though, was the ability to download full PDF versions of the books, which they could read or print at their leisure and on their own machines. Oh, and they wanted Google to provide this free of charge.
Google went ahead and did it. Books no longer in copyright are now available for download from the Google Book Search site.
Wow. Google strikes again, in a big way.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, joining Apple’s board is an interesting thing, too. They certainly have become the company to watch.…
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:36 AM.
Posted to Book sellers | Books | Computers | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology | Writing
Arranging Books by Color
Rob writes, over at Design Observer:
I have never found the Dewey Decimal Classification system to be an accurate reflection of how books are organized in my own mind — or anybody else’s for that matter. Certainly I understand the DDC’s advantages when when it comes to large-scale collections, but if how we choose to organize our personal effects says something about who we are, then an arbitrary numeric system says very little about me.
[…]
Recently, I stopped by a design studio in my building called Thumb to see my friend Luke Bulman. He’d just reorganized his books by color, and I asked him why he did it. A few reasons that resonated with me, and helped to illuminate his logic.
Read the rest — an interesting post indeed.
Here in my office and library, books are organized according to subject, but not with any recognizable system. Type books are together, books about book design are together, then books about types of art, etc. It is, as Rob suggests, organized according to the way that works best for the user — me.
How are your books arranged?
Those of you with good memories will remember one subject of Rob’s post being mentioned here on Foreword back in 2004.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 30, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Photographs I Love Tonight
Can’t let Foreword’s third birthday weekend pass without a post on one of our newer areas of emphasis: photography. Especially the intersection of photography and book covers.
Here’s one I’d love to use on a cover:
From the always-wonderful heavenuphere, shooting at an architecture exhibit in Rotterdam.
She’s also a librarian, and I covet her garden, too. Multitalented!
Posted by Giles, Sunday, March 19, 2006, at 8:37 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book people | Flickr | Libraries | Photography
The Search's Copyright: A Good Discussion
Tom Evslin, author of hackoff.com, mentioned not too long ago, has a good conversation with John Battelle, author of The Search — which is about Google et al — regarding the copyright warning in his book:
This warning seems directly aimed at Google Book Search, a project which intends to scan the collections of some of the world’s great libraries and make them searchable online. Now you can find similar language on the copyright page of lots of books but John Battelle is a known strong supporter of the value of having almost everything searchable as anyone who reads either his book or his blog knows.
So I emailed John and asked him about the apparent contradiction. He said the decision was the publisher’s (Penguin) decision to make but “I totally disagree with it.” Of course, at the time he signed his contract with Penguin, no one knew that this issue would exist. He readily agreed to talk to me it.
Tom also notes that hackoff.com has been selected for the short-list of titles being considered in the fiction category for the Lulu Blooker Prize. Congrats.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 9, 2006, at 1:18 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book people | Book prizes | Books | Business | Computers | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology
LibraryThing
Attention bibliophiles, this is an amazing new site! LibraryThing let’s you catalog your library online:
“LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Because everyone catalogs together, you can also use LibraryThing to find people with similar libraries, get suggestions from people with your tastes and so forth.”
“In addition to cataloging your own library, LibraryThing allows you to “tag” your books (see below), check out other people’s libraries, tells you who has similar tastes, etc.”
If you decide to partake, feel free to share your username here, mine’s synthetic
Posted by todd, Tuesday, December 13, 2005, at 3:13 PM.
Posted to Libraries
Heaven on Earth
One day I’ll actually be done with my undergraduate degree but until then I’m enjoying Eckerd’s beautiful new library (and studying yield curve rates). If you’re in the St. Pete area, the Armacost Library is a must-visit.
Posted by , Monday, March 28, 2005, at 11:04 AM.
Posted to Libraries
Pamela Ribon
is really the queen of library fundraising. Congratulations!
Posted by , Friday, July 23, 2004, at 9:20 PM.
Posted to Libraries
Public domain library fun
This is a priceless gem from the Prelinger Archives. Download it today!
Posted by , Wednesday, April 28, 2004, at 7:06 AM.
Posted to Libraries
Maintaining your home library
Thanks to the NY Public Library, home libraries can be as well-organized as your favorite institutional library. NY Public Library Special Collections Cataloger Kathie Coblentz has created a database program (with fields for genre, subject, size, illustrations, et cetera but also a field for who is currently borrowing the book) and an accompanying 130-page book (explaining the basics of cataloging and maintaining a home collection). If I wasn’t already a librarian, I’d buy this today.
Posted by , Sunday, February 1, 2004, at 8:47 AM.
Posted to Libraries
For Library Lovers
In one of those better-late-than-never moments, I offer the 2004 Renaissance Library Calendar. Aren’t these libraries beautiful?
Posted by , Friday, January 30, 2004, at 4:25 AM.
Posted to Libraries