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.