Newsletter 2671 Issue 2671200841513013

News

Cleveland PL Director Andrew Venable Retiring
Andrew Venable, who touted the Cleveland Public Library as “the people’s university,” is retiring July 1 from his nine-year stint as director to care for his ailing mother. Venable is working on a book about marketing public libraries. » » »

ProQuest Adds LexisNexis American State Papers and U.S. Congressional Serial Set
ProQuest has struck a deal to add a ton of bibliographic records from LexisNexis’s American State Papers and U.S. Congressional Serial Set to C19: The Nineteenth Century Index. » » »

Rowling Getting Celebrity Treatment in Court
One simply cannot treat the world’s best selling author like an ordinary muggle. J.K. Rowling will have a private security guard and spend breaks in a secluded jury room while appearing in a Manhattan court to testify in a lawsuit to block the publication of RDR Books’ The Harry Potter Lexicon. » » »

Editorial: Format Free
Books still rock, but new technologies make the content once imprisoned on paper available in a variety of other equally convenient and portable modes. » » »

Blogs

Wyatt's World

Wyatt’s World: Bulbs and Stocks and Spices, Oh, My!
The King, the Crook, and the Gambler: The True Story of the South Sea Bubble and the Greatest Financial Scandal in History by Malcolm Balen (HarperCollins)
The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm by Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr (Wiley)
Pop!:  Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy by Daniel Gross (HarperCollins)
The Tulip by Anna Pavord (Bloomsbury)
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner (Vintage)

Review

Berthomé, Jean-Pierre & Francois Thomas. Orson Welles at Work.
Michael Rogers

Berthomé, Jean-Pierre & Francois Thomas. Orson Welles at Work. Phaidon. Apr. 2008. 320p. illus. filmog. ISBN 978-0-7148-4583-8. $79.95. FILM

Orson Welles was the original multitasker, bringing a whirlwind of creative energy and ideas to every project, often laying the groundwork for the next several potential projects before actually finishing the task at hand. He was also lightning fast at thinking on his feet, so when problems arose in his productions, as they seemingly always did, he could instantly change directions and carry on. The authors, French university film study professors, theorize that as a filmmaker there was no single method to Welles’s work pattern, and that each project was treated as a fresh, unique experience to which he adapted his approach accordingly. While his early radio and theater work receive some discussion, the focus here is on his films, including shorts and TV work, which are dissected individually. The text is accompanied by numerous wonderful stills, screengrabs, set illustrations, script-page facsimiles with Welles’s alterations, and behind-the-scenes documentary pix, and the book is capped with a brief biography and a filmography divided by completed/uncompleted films, completed tv programs, trailers, film fragments, and literary readings to make for a very thorough record. Though geysers of ink have been spilled over Welles, he continues to fascinate, making this book a solid purchase for film collections.

—Michael Rogers, Library Journal

Xpress Reviews

Xpress Reviews—First Look at New Books
Michael Gregorio’s Days of Atonement, Mignola and others’ Hellboy Vol. 7, Rodi and Ribic’s Loki, Stephen King’s unabridged audio Duma Key (all starred), and other reviews just in! » » »

Highlights

What If You Ran Your Bookstore Like a Library?
The tides have turned and libraries are outgunning bookstores, which could learn a few lessons about luring readers » » »

The Sound of Crime Fiction
Audio moves in libraries, but the most popular genre by far is mysteries, whether series, standalones, or breakouts, which perfectly lend themselves to mood-setting narration. Whodunits also have found a new audience in slick, attractive large print. » » »

The Transparent Library: Measuring Progress
There are many cool tools out there for 2.0, but they must fit into the library’s philosophy and be evaluated and tracked by staff and patrons to determine their usefulness. » » »

LJ Alerts

Best Sellers

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