Perkins, the library cat at “Bloggington-on-Sea Carnegie Library on the dockside of Bloggington harbour” is the host of the Good Library Blog, part of The Good Library Guide website, an ombudsman for libraries in the U.S. and the U.K.Perkins can generally be counted upon to provide library news found nowhere else and insightful commentary that never fails to scratch below the surface and leave a keen, plump hairball of perception in its aftermath.Recently, however, Perkins – in a fit of delirious feline pique inspired, perhaps, by underindulgence by his caregivers or overindulgence in a kilo of catnip, or both –...
Golden Handcuffs Review. A Talk with Lou Rowan
The 2009 Spring/Summer issue of Golden Handcuffs Reviewis now out. The issue features sections on 'Nathaniel Tarn at 80' and Luisa Valenzuela at 70' along with contributions from more than forty artists and writers, among them Rebecca Brown, Pedro Calderon, Gwendolyn Diaz, Alice Notley, Pat Nolan, Toby Olson, Brian Strang, Rosemarie Waldrop and Raul Zurita.I had a chance to check in with Lou Rowan, the editor and guiding light of GH, to find out more about the history of GH and how things are going as a publisher of a literary/visual magazine in these times.Book Patrol: Merriam Webster defines Golden...
Book Sort
Living With Books. Ink Jet on Paper 22" x 30"Book Sort is an exhibition of 25 large photographs by Theresa Rae currently on view at The North Bank Artists Gallery in Vancouver, WA. The series, which is part of Rae's larger body of work titled Questions of Identity, documents Rae's process of unpacking and re-shelving her library after a move.CommunionRae says:Everyone has their own way of finding answers. I had to rebuild my world through sorting and solitude. Book Sort documents four days of living with my books as they transitioned from storage to shelves in my home. Because these...
On the Closing of a Bookshop
Storefront of Valley Book's previous location ERRATA: Nat Herold, referred to below as an employee of Valley Books, is actually the co-owner of Amherst Books.****************After 34 years Valley Books of Amherst, MA, one of the oldest used and antiquarian bookshops in New England, is closing.Owner Larry Pruner says "Every good thing has to come to an end, and when it's no longer a good thing, it comes to an end sooner."He then shares this:"The used book business is like an ecosystem that's been thrown off balance by e-books, the Internet and the recession. It's hammering away at a world that...
On Selling Off Rare Books To Pay the Bills at University of San Francisco
Yesterday, PhiloBiblos wrote Selling Off Rare Books To Pay the Bills in protest against the decision by Rev. Stephen Privett, president of the Jesuit’s University of San Francisco, to sell items from the rare books and art collection of USF’s Gleeson Library.This action has many dissidents.I have many friends who are university librarians. The work that rare book/special collections director-curator-librarians do is extremely important and the ability of some of the best to identify a heretofore unexamined subject and acquire material related to it is one of the great illuminating services they offer to students, scholars and the public.Philobliblos, who...