Public Library has Power Meters for Patron Use

The Boulder Library is now stocking Kill-a-Watt power meters for their patrons to checkout in order to monitor their power usage. What a great idea! Patrons can use the library to obtain resources to help them live more frugally and save energy. Triple win!

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_13997988

P.L.

Third Friday at Walk a Crooked Mile Books - 12/18/2009

WACM is doing better, but continues to need local support. They have been sponsoring Friday evening events for holiday shopping. This Friday, 12/18 there will be another open-house at the bookstore, so come visit, shop, and enjoy some snacks. Fun for all ages!

Walk a Crooked Mile Bookstore
Gowen and Devon Streets - Mt. Airy R7 Train Station
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia

Friday, 12/18/2009
5:30 - 9:00 p.m.

http://www.walkacrookedmilebooks.com

************
From Greg Williams - 12/15/2009

Dear Friends,

Things continue to look more and more positive at the bookstore. We had a good turn-out at last Friday's open house. Then our Boyer St. Neighbors had a kid friendly open house on Saturday morning with kids running around, dogs and cats interacting, cups of hot cocoa everywhere and lots of people buying lots of books. Look for the pictures soon at our website www.walkacrookedmilebooks.com. We have one more open house, we're calling it Third Friday, this Friday December 18 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. We'll have wine and hummus and crackers and s'mores for the hardy but we also have a few other twists. One of my neighbors, Todd Kimmell, will bring his pony cart of images and set them up outside the shop for your enjoyment and shopping pleasure.

Hope to see you.

Greg and Cynthia
Walk a Crooked Mile Books

Walk a Crooked Mile Books in Need of Support

Walk a Crooked Mile Books recently contacted people on its mailing list to ask for support during this economic recession. As such, this blog will feature periodic updates on special events at this wonderful secondhand bookstore in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia.

Please support Walk a Crooked Mile and your local used bookstores!

New Website: http://www.walkacrookedmilebooks.com

The Phrugal Librarian

*****************

From Greg Williams - 11/1/2009

Walk a Crooked Mile Books closing ?

Dear Friends,

Walk a Crooked Mile Books might have to close it doors soon. We have been open for fifteen years. Our knees and backs have aged through those years but we hoped to stay open a few more. But the recent economic situation has led to mounting debts to our landlord Septa and to the IRS for employee withholding taxes. If these are unpaid, we will have to close.

We started the shop with a roomful of books in December of 1994 and accrued a fair amount of debt to open it up and, unfortunately, we still have that debt. I continued to teach for about 10 years to support the shop as it grew. About 5 years ago I left teaching and worked full time in the shop and it continued to grow and was just supporting my partner Cynthia and I over the last few years and we thought we were secure. You, our customers and friends have been very supportive, buying our books, telling your friends about us, and donating boxes and boxes of books. Many of those books have been recycled and sold in the shop. Many of them have gone to individuals in the community through our overflowing free pile. Almost 9,000 books have been shipped to Korea to build a University library there. And many of them have sold in the shop and supported us and our work.

When I opened the shop, I wanted to be a bookseller but I also wanted to be a community builder and I’m proud that Walk a Crooked Mile Books has become a part of the warp and woof of Mount Airy. We started a free concert series nearly ten years ago and have had countless wonderful evenings of music outside the shop. We have sponsored the Umpteenth Mount Airy Yard Sale for umpteenth plus Saturdays. We’ve seen countless young babies grow to toddlers who come to watch the train come in, and then start finding books to read in our $1 kid’s books, and they are now in High School. We’ve served coffee and tea to thousands of you and you have let us into your lives. We are grateful for all of this. We hope you feel that we are an important aspect of the community and that we need a good used bookstore in the area.

If we have to close, we don’t want to do so without letting you know our situation. I think we have till at least January or February to see if we can turn the tide. If not, then I foresee a four month going out of business sale. We certainly will honor all trade credits and commission sales. We don’t need more book donations right now. In fact, we have an embargo on incoming books till at least January 2010. WE DO NEED TO SELL MORE BOOKS AND FIND MORE REGULAR BOOK BUYERS. We’ll raise the price of some of our offerings with the hope that this will help but we really hope to hear from you in the way of an increase in your shopping with us. Perhaps you could also buy Gift Certificates or books as holiday presents as ways of bringing us more customers. Quite a few people have stopped by the shop and asked if they can make donations and we are looking at the possibility of that.

These are tough times and many of you are also hurting and we understand. If it is time to close, we’ll accept that and find other ways to support ourselves and participate in the community.

Thanks

Greg Williams and Cynthia Potter
Walk a Crooked Mile Books

P.S. Visit us at our newly launching website www.walkacrookedmilebooks.com which has been generously built by Rachel Polisher of LIVE ALBUM WEB AND DESIGN. We will have updates there. If you don't find it the first time, give us a few more days and check back. We also will be in touch with follow-ups.

Why should anyone read personal finance books?

So, exactly why should anyone bother to read personal finance books?

My answer is very similar to the one given by Trent at The Simple Dollar. Reading finance books keeps me accountable to myself. I want to live a frugal and satisfied lifestyle free of debt. So far, I have accomplished that goal, and I want to maintain that lifestyle. Quality information helps me to do that.

Nine Reasons I Keep Reading Personal Finance Books by Trent at The Simple Dollar.

Check it out!

P.L. a.k.a the Phrugal Librarian

Biblio-Phrugality Website Up and Running

My INFO652 class at Drexel has finished for the Spring, 2009 term. My final project, the Biblio-Phrugality website, is up and running.

Come read about the wonderful secondhand bookstores in the City of Philadelphia!

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~dab333/652/index.html

P.L.

Colors finally fixed

Sorry for blinding all the readers with a crazy color scheme. Everything should be settled down now.

P.L.

Monthly Book Swap: High Point Cafe, Mt. Airy (Philadelphia)

The High Point Cafe at the Allens Lane R8 Train Station in Mt. Airy is sponsoring a monthly book swap the Third Thursday of every month from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Come bring books to swap and enjoy some coffee and dessert while you are at it!

Starting Today, Thursday, May 21, 2009
Third Thursday of every month

High Point Cafe
Allens Lane Train Station
Mt. Airy

Book swapping is a most excellent and phrugal idea!

P.L.

Your Brain as an Index

Occasionally, I hope to delve into a few topics related to librarianship, as I am studying at the Drexel University iSchool for a Masters degree in Library and Information Science.

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan and The Daily Dish, I saw this blog post by Peter Suderman @ The American Scene postulating how Google is tranforming our brains into indexes.

Money quote from Your Brain as an Index:

Why memorize the content of a single book when you could be using your
brain to hold a quick guide to an entire library? Rather than memorize
information, we now store it digitally and just remember what we stored —
resulting in what David Brooks called “the outsourced brain.” We won’t become books, we’ll become their indexes and reference guides, permanently holding on to rather little deep knowledge, preferring instead to know what’s known, by ourselves and others, and where that knowledge is stored.

This is an interesting concept which I would like to explore further. As I get older I am less and less interested in memorization, and more interested in quick and easy access to information, so on an anecdotal level Suderman's comment rings true.

Comments?

P.L.

BookCrossing

I recently heard about a cool site called BookCrossing. The purpose of the site is to recycle and re-use books by placing them anonymously in public places and then tracking them over the web. It's kind of treasure hunting + serendipitous re-gifting of used books, that helps to promote literacy. According to the website, the definition of bookcrossing is: "“the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.”

Membership is free. If you choose you can become a paid member to support the organization. What a great phrugal way to share books that you no longer need or want! I'm going to set aside some older paperbacks to try it.

P.L. the Phrugal Librarian

FLP Book Corner Big Book Sale

The Friends of the Free Library Book Corner is having its annual Big Book Sale from May 15-17. Everything is on sale! Every day, the store offers a 10% discount for students with student ID. (I don't know if discounts are combined, but you can try!) Volunteers are needed - call 215.567.0527 for more information.

The 3/50 Project

While I was in Wayne, PA today I browsed around a nice independent bookstore called Reader's Forum. They sell mostly new books in the store, but both new and used books online. In their front window I noticed a sign about the 3/50 Project, a movement to support independent, "mom and pop", brick-and-mortar local retailers.

I think this is a very worthwhile project that helps money earned in local communities stay in local communities. My goal with this blog and my website is to help support local bookstores in Philadelphia. I hope that my readers will support their local stores as well.

Doreva

Walk a Crooked Mile Bookstore - 30% Sale and Yard Sales

One of the bookstores I am going to be featuring on my website, Walk a Crooked Mile Books, is in the process of thinning out their stock. Thus, they are offering a 30% sale on ALL BOOKS until Mary 23, 2009.

Also, WACM hosts wonderful yard sales for the Mt. Airy community. The small fee that the bookstore charges goes towards hosting and advertising, with excess going to support the independent bookstore. They have been voted Best of the Northwest by the Philadelphia City Paper both as a bookstore and as a yard sale.

Yardsales: 9:00a.m. - about 2:00 p.m.

• Saturday, April 25
• Saturday, May 9
• Raindate - May 16

The bookstore sells coffee, tea, cold drinks, and cookies/snack crackers at the sale. Usually there is a vendor selling soft pretzels, and sometimes vendors sell baked goods. (If the person with the baking website wants to sell baked goods, sign up with Greg Williams at 215-242-0854.)

I will be a vendor on May 9th, selling lots of used stuff TBD. Feel free to come by and visit!

Tomorrow I will be talking to Greg, WACM's owner, about my project and hope to get an interview and pictures to begin work on my site. He's a great guy who is very committed to the neighborhood of Mt. Airy. I am happy to showcase his bookstore on my blog/website.

Doreva

Walk a Crooked Mile Bookstore

7423 Devon St. (Devon and Gowen Streets at the Septa R7 Mt. Airy Train Station)

215-242-0854

wacmbook@aol.com

Color testing in progress

This week you will see a bunch of color shifts on this blog, since it is the easiest way that I have found to test hex colors on a website without having to set up test webpages. When we start working on CSS I will make test pages for the final project site.

I used the Hex Color Chips website, and it is great, but it still hard for me to visualize colors from chips. (I am no good at picking housepaint colors from swatches either.)

I confess that my favorite color scheme is light colors on a black background. It's the design I have used for personal webpages in the past. However, I recognize from our readings that a black background with light text can be difficult for people with visual impairments to read. So for the final project I will look for a more accomodating color scheme.

My topic is used bookstores, so when I hear the word "bookstore" I think of a spectrum of browns and burgundies for old books and then wood tones or grey metallic for shelving.

Other colors that I am looking at this week include: charcoal and slate grey, turquoise, mediterranean blue, what I have heard called "petroleum blue", light blue and light grey.

This week I will be searching for other sites whose colors I like very much and will post about them.

Have a good week!

Doreva

Saying no to "Creepy Treehouses"

In my INFO530 class we are discussing the use of information systems by libraries to create a form of competitive advantage. In one discussion, a classmate mentioned the concept of "creepy treehouse" - the "icky" forced feel of a website or resource that is so painfully obvious in trying to draw in younger viewers with the latest technologies. Here is a definition from Flexknowlogy.

As I mentioned before, I am already creeped-out by being contacted by members of my own high school class on Facebook. I don't want my site or blog turning into a "creepy treehouse". I don't think this site, focusing on secondhand bookstores in Philadelphia, will ever look like that.

However, as more libraries are jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, I have to ask the questions:

• What's the line between cool, acceptable, and creepy?
• How do you keep your library's website or Facebook page from becoming a 'creepy treehouse'?
• Do you charge younger, more electronically-connected people with its maintenance?
• Do you solicit volunteer posts from students?

Doreva

Bibliofrugality: The Frugal Librarian's Guide to Secondhand Books in Philadelphia

Thanks to everyone who has left comments! I decided to pick the topic of used (secondhand) bookstores in the city of Philadelphia. As much as I love independent bookstores, there are simply too many to focus on and I do not want to duplicate the recent Philadelphia City Paper article focusing on indie bookstores in the area.

Instead, I want to focus on why secondhand bookstores are important. To me, they are the epitome of recycling and sustainability. One person's trash is another one's treasure. They are also a wonderfully frugal and economical source of great reads when you want to purchase a book instead of getting it from a library. Also, each bookstore has its own special character and niche that I find fascinating.

I have tentatively identified the first few bookstores to include, and this will expand in the next 2 weeks:

• Book Trader – 2nd and Market St.
• Walk a Crooked Mile Books – Devon and Gowen Streets, Mt. Airy
• Bookhaven – Fairmount Avenue across from the Eastern State Penitentiary
• The Book Corner – Friends of the Free Library- 20th street behind the Central Library branch (also mention of the fact that most of the Friends of the Free Library groups sell used books very cheaply at almost all FLP branches).
• Whodunnit – bookstore specializing in mysteries and true crime – 19th and Chestnut Sts.
• The Last Word Bookshop – 40th St. between Walnut and Locust Sts.

I would like to offer some basics: Name, website, address, contact information, directions via public transit, and link to a Google or Mapquest map. I will photograph at least the outside of each one myself.

For reviews, I will write a short paragraph that focuses on the strengths of each bookstore and also potentially other neighborhood higlights the customer might enjoy.

I am collecting some articles about each bookstore, to be able to place on a separate page in order to give an idea of history and relevance I may also see about what I can find in terms of the history of secondhand bookstores in general, and those in Philadelphia in particular. I plan to include some articles that reference frugality, economic savings, sustainability, and the culture of secondhand bookstores in general. I am not yet sure of the page structure or headings yet, but will update that when I have better ideas ready.

What do you think of this title: Bibliofrugality: The Frugal Librarian's Guide to Secondhand Books in Philadelphia ?

Doreva

Twitter and Flutter

Last week we read about Web 2.0 technologies. I knew about most of them, but I have admitted to many colleagues and friends that I still don't really "get" Facebook or Twitter. I just created a Facebook account last term, and members of my high school graduating class (from 1988 Eep!) have already friended me. I am not sure how much contact I want with the past. To be frank, it makes me rather uncomfortable. But since I do not wish to be "left behind", I did it.

However, Twitter, I really do not understand. I fail to see the point unless you are in a business or a situation where it is important to track people and their status up to the minute. I read the info sheet about Twitter that Emily provided to us, and while I kind of understand the idea of promoting cohension among a group of colleagues, I still don't see much worth from the example given. I did however, read a better example of how Twitter could be used at large conventions to keep track of presentations and also use tagging to classify information and ideas. See this post by Steven Bell on Library Journal regarding the recent ACRL conference and the participants' use of Twitter and tagging. (Thanks to Tim Siftar of Hagerty Library for sending me an email about that article!)

I am a long-time user of Yahoo Bookmarks, but I recently signed up for Delicious and have started to re-tag, re-categorize, and do some much needed weeding of my hundreds of bookmarks that I have collected on various computers since about 1995. In one of my internships I have started exploring Jing for creating short video tutorials. I used to use Camtasia Studio in my former IT job, and I think Jing is a great free alternative for those libraries and non-profits on a tight budget. I will be creating tutorials for our current OPAC at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Library of the Religious Society of Friends, and then when we upgrade the OPAC later in the year I will redo them.

I have not yet signed up for Twitter, as my brain is still all a-flutter about this application. However, I did enjoy this video. Parody or the next killer app? You decide.

Flutter

(Thanks to Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish for the link.)

Doreva

Final Project ideas

Decisions, decisions, so many decisions...

For my INFO 511 class, I did a wiki on homemade glycerin soapmaking, which is my primary hobby. Thus, I don't think I can use that subject for the final project, as much as I would like to do so.

There are other subjects that interest me, such as opera and ballet, but I consider myself to be a relative newcomer to those areas, so I don't feel that I have much to say of interest to others. (I keep asking myself, "What could I possibly contribute that hasn't already been said about X...?") A secondary problem is that I have no original photographs that could be used for a website on opera or ballet, and I would have to navigate what royalty-free options were available, all in one term.

So, I looked over the other websites that previous INFO 652 students have made, and tentatively came up with some ideas that might work for the scope of a one-term project:

• Candlemaking - Apart from soapmaking, I would like to explore candlemaking, particularly with soy and gel waxes. I would be a beginner, but I think I could do some basic projects and document them from a beginner's point of view. Then I could link to some more advanced resources and suppliers. My cousin, who has a BA in fine art (photography), is also a hobby candlemaker and I could get permission from her to post some of her work as well if she wanted to contribute to the site.
  
• Used Bookstores in the Greater Philadelphia area - I love going to used bookstores and browsing. Since I think it's important to support independent bookstores, especially in this time of economic recession, I could create a site that documents the used/secondhand bookstores in the greater Philadelphia area. I would do a review of each, comment on their individual character, describe the location and special offerings (subject matter, availability of food and beverages, trading policies, etc.) and list address, hours, and contact information. I could take exterior photos and also include some interior photos with the permission of the owners.

Comments?

D.

My Introduction

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Doreva and I am a graduate student in the Master of Library Science program at Drexel University. My concentration is in Digital Libraries.

Formerly, I worked in IT in various positions, from help desk technical support all the way up to project manager of a software implementation. At the present time, I am working as an intern for the Internet Public Library at Drexel University, where I am a Digital Collections intern. I also intern/volunteer at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends Library.

After graduate school, I would like to work in an academic or special library in some sort of digital area: library IT systems, technical services, digital collections, digital reference, or any combination of the above.

Some of my favorite websites are:

• The Daily Dish - political blog by Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic
  
• The Simple Dollar - personal finance blog dedicated to helping people manage their finances wisely and live a satisfying frugal lifestyle
  
• KYW1060 - Philadelphia news radio station (1060 AM) website that is very helpful to check business, traffic, and weather for the greater Philadelphia area