We Bought Nooks!?

You all probably have an impression that I am a bit of a luddite when it comes to reading. I don’t think this would be an unfair or inaccurate assessment, but perhaps it’s not entirely true anymore. For our anniversary, Jen and I got Nooks.

Commute Podcasts

Jen, Winston, and I all live in Fayetteville in the house I imagine you all have read about. Fayetteville is a great town – it’s a college town, and has the feel that we really like. People are friendly and have a different mindset than that of other towns in northwest Arkansas. The downside of this is that I have to commute into work. Now, if this were a nice commute (think light rail/subway) I don’t think I would complain too much. But this being the south with an intense aversion to almost all forms of public transit, I must drive to work.

Four Months Later...

Hi readers,

If you've found your way back here after our four month hiatus here at the files, welcome back. If you're a new reader, I am glad you are here. In sitting down to write this post, I see it has been far too long since my last post. I thought perhaps I owe it to you all to fill you in on some of the happenings around here at the files...

Reading in our Home

One of the joys of our new home is reading. I’ve read two lengthy nonfiction books since we moved in - and that is with the work we have done to get everything in the house usable and accessible. Just about the time we were moving in, I heard a piece on Fresh Air on NPR about habits and how we form them. According to the author, the times when we can form new habits are times of major change - birth of a child, or moving. With this in mind, I have been making a special effort to create a reading habit in our new home.

Library Day in the Life: Day 5

Readers, this is my final post for the Library Day in the Life, Round 8 project. As you can imagine, Friday was a day with all sorts of different tasks to accomplish, and I have even included some more photos as it's Friday.

Library Day in the Life: Day 4

I am a day late on this, the fourth installment of my Library Day in the Life project this week. It was a busy day yesterday, and I am excited to tell you about it. I am slightly altering my list format from last time, and I will try to include approximate times.

Library Day in the Life: Day 3

Well, it's my third post this week of Library Day in the Life and today has by far been the busiest for me. And, rather than some repetitive narrative for my day, how about a list to change things up.

Library Day in the Life: Day 2

As I stated yesterday, I am participating in Library Day in the Life, Round 8. Today is much more quiet than yesterday, as Tuesday is our "dark day" at the museum. This provided me an opportunity to do something a bit different with my day today.

Library Day in the Life: Day 1

Well, readers, from now until the Friday, I am doing my best to participate in the Library Day in the Life, Round 8.

Here’s the brief about the project, taken from their website:

The Month of Letters

Readers, you probably know all too well by now our penchant for letters at the Dean house - we try and write a couple each weekend. I have started replying to personal emails (if I have not replied during the week) with a letter so that I spend a bit less time in front of a screen. Jen and I usually write at least one postcard or letter to a friend or family member. However, I feel as though I might "step up my game" in the letter writing department and a challenge posted recently online prompted me to commit to writing 24 letters in the month of February. If you'd like to participate with me, send me your address (email, twitter, facebook, etc) and I'll put you in line for a letter! It might be on fun paper, might be long or short, but either way I will hand-write a letter to you. Also, we have fun stamps to put on the envelopes as well!

The Power of Mail

The holiday season (which is just about over as of this writing) is quite the time for mail. Holiday cards and letters, thank-you notes, and packages filled with presents. It’s amusing, then, that it appears that the postal service is ending next-day delivery and shuttering many of its locations across the US. Of course, as pointed out recently in The New Yorker, the rise of email and other forms of electronic communication are largely to blame.

Still, receiving a piece of mail is far more exciting than an email or an “@” mention in a tweet. Our many holiday cards on our mantle reminded me of this, and set me to thinking about why “analog” mail is such a joy to receive.

2011 Books in Brief

Remember last year when I posted all about what books I read, when, and what I thought of them? That was really great, wasn’t it? I started 2011 fully intending on doing another series like that, but, well, it didn’t happen. As you know too well by now, Jen and I moved to Arkansas, and we both started new jobs. That said, we certainly did not stop reading. I think overall our reading pace slowed some, but overall, things were about the same. Except for keeping track of the books!

Well, instead of a series of posts about what I read this year, (and lacking a list) allow me to point out some highlights from my reading this year.



And here they are, in reverse order:

• James Turrell: The Wolfsburg Project I love Turrell and the piece he did in Wolfsburg. And, it came with a cool bookmark!



• Baseball : a literary anthology Of course, this was mixed - some pieces were great, and others were not as great. Still, one of the best books I read this year!



• The Island of the Colorblind Jen and I both love the writing of Oliver Sacks. This is one of his older titles, but it’s still great!



• Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865 I finally finished Lincoln’s collected writings, and true to form, this second volume of later writings was much better than his first. It was interesting to see his development as a writer, and how great stress and responsibility improved his writing.



• Print the Legend: Photography and the American West I will freely admit that this is a surprising best book choice for 2011. It ties together almost all of my interests and passions, though - American history, photography, books, and printing. Sandweiss’ writing style is quite readable, but it is certainly a serious study of photography and its impact on our perceptions of what the West is, and the native and non-native cultures within it.

So, there you have it. I apologize for not keeping good track of the books I have read this year, and I have a plan in place to rectify this. Namely, my Goodreads profile.

I have started tracking what I have read, and what is in my reading queue now, and I will give it my best effort to keep it current and updated. If you are on Goodreads, please add me as a friend (as this makes it much more fun for everyone) and if you are not, consider signing up and add me as a friend.

That said, I would love to hear about any books you really enjoyed this year. Have a great 2012!!

Dickson Street Bookshop

It’s a little hard to believe that Jen and I have lived in northwest Arkansas for just under a year. It has been quite a year indeed for us, but more about that in another post. For now, let me share with you one of the places in Fayetteville that we loved, and still love going to: the Dickson Street Bookshop.

Cataloging Nursery Catalogs

Readers, I have been working on this paper about cataloging nursery catalogs for the past few weeks, and I think I am ready to share it. I would love to hear your feedback! (PS - thanks to Jen and Penny Baker for their help!) The paper is below the jump!

Why I Love the 903

At the outset I feel obligated to tell you that this should be my last post about cameras for a while. I plan on resuming my usual rambling next week, but I feel as though after my last post about cameras, I left the door open to talking about my newest camera - my 903SWC. I’ve run several rolls through this camera now, and have the results back (see the slideshow below!) to confirm my suspicions about the camera, as well as having used it enough to see if it’s “for me.”

Cameras: A Litany

Last week’s post loosely traced my development as a man and my use of the square frame as a photographer. I intentionally edited out any real mention of specific cameras, as I thought it might be interesting to do a second post about my development and my choice of camera. Before I start, I want to share with you that I have mixed feelings about this post. I think it’s interesting, but as I have gotten older, what a photographer uses as a camera has mattered less and less to me. I love talking cameras with people, but the camera that a photographer uses is no indicator as to whether or not they are good at photographing. I remember on Monhegan that a woman had an M9 that she was reading the manual for when she wasn’t taking photos. At least she is learning, I suppose - but I feel that that is a nice illustration to my point - the camera does not make a photographer. And now I am going to put that out of mind and begin my narrative.

Thoughts on the Square Image

Jen and I are back from our vacation in Maine. We had a lovely time, and I am sure we will write more than you might want to read about the trip. As you might suspect, we took our cameras with us and made many photographs (360 to be exact) on the trip. We are waiting on the film to be developed and scanned so we can share our images with you. In the course of photographing (and thinking about cameras, in general) I thought a great deal about photography, as well as the choices that I make in my hobby. What originally started out as an homage to the square image has now become some hybrid of a homage and a narrative about how I feel about photography now.

A friend loaned me the book that has the perfect quote in it, describing the square in a bit more objective manner:

ArLiS: Friday, March 25

It’s time for my second post about the ArLiS conference in Minneapolis, and today I will be writing about my first full day at the conference, Friday. As I am looking at my notes from the day, there was one very good session, and the rest were a “mixed bag,” as I like to say.

My first session on Friday was the opening plenary, which ostensibly was about copyright, and how bridges can be built between educational users and copyright holders.

ArLiS: Thursday, March 24

Well, readers, it’s a blog post from Jason – gasp! What august event caused me to sit down and write another post? The short answer is that I just returned from the 2011 ArLiS/NA+VRA annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As you can imagine the conference put lots of new thoughts and ideas into my head, ones which I want to share with you here. In thinking over the past few days how I wanted to share my experiences and reflections with you, and I think (as librarian extraordinaire Erin Dorney does) I will do it on a day by day basis, with some overall thoughts and reflections at the end.

And, as it is brief, allow me to start with my first day, Thursday, March 24th.

Reading...

I miss reading, friends. I just haven't been reading as much as I would like to recently. As a matter of fact, I have two New Yorkers piled up on my bedside table waiting to be read. Why have my reading habits changed so much? I've been thinking about this for a while, and what follows is my best answer to that question.