Facebook and google intrusions

I recently joined Facebook (if you want to follow me- feel free!) as our Library was setting up a page and to be an administrator you had to have an account to set it up. And knowing what I knew about networking (thanks to all my blogging friends who have taught me so much over the years!) I knew that I would need to be active on Facebook, friend people that I might not have seen in some years and take some risks. It paid off and the branch has the followers it needs but it came just as the Facebook scandal erupted about how Facebook had done a week long test in 2012 on it's users to see if it could get change their moods based on their friend's postings. So they only allowed them to see the negative postings of their friends to see how it would effect the users. It was pretty nefarious and of course that came close on the heals of all the mining that all of the social network sites do at the behest of the NSA. So I just feel a sort of love/hate relationship for all my social networking sites. On one hand, I love that  I have met blogging friends that I never would have otherwise and I have gotten in touch with friends (on Facebook) again. Google+ also automatically backs up all my photos so that when my phone inexplicably corrupted my SD card the other day, I didn't lose a single picture. It also does cute things like this:  

Made a gif of my little Leyla. So cute! A little scary though that it did it on it's own. It also makes photo albums of my pictures. Dates and puts the place in for me. Yup, a little scary. 

or like this one, it did a little finishing up on it. Framed it, changed the color... All a little creepy. Someday I'll wake up and my phone will have chosen my outfit for me. 

In other news... 

I hate to hear this but the Guardian had an article today that author median incomes are collapsing. The article stated,

According to a survey of almost 2,500 working writers – the first comprehensive study of author earnings in the UK since 2005 – the median income of the professional author in 2013 was just £11,000, a drop of 29% since 2005 when the figure was £12,330 (£15,450 if adjusted for inflation), and well below the £16,850 figure the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says is needed to achieve a minimum standard of living. The typical median income of all writers was even less: £4,000 in 2013, compared to £5,012 in real terms in 2005, and £8,810 in 2000. 

Despite headlines about record-breaking deals – most recently for a slice of One Direction fan fiction, which earned Anna Todd a mid-six-figure deal with Simon & Schuster – the "vast majority" of writers receive advances that are well below the level that would make them equivalent to a salary, said Smythe. "I know very few writers who earn above the Minimum Income Standard, and that means that they need second jobs," said Smythe. "Awards and critical acclaim used to be enough, in the heady days of 1970s publishing. It's simply not, now. 

"Most people know that a few writers make a lot of money. This survey tells us about the vast majority of writers, who don't," said Cope. "It's important that the public should understand this – and why it is so important for authors to be paid fairly for their work."

 I guess for me, this is why it's important to push the value of reading in our society. Those of us who are readers (and writers) assume that the rest of the world are like we are. And even if we have a vague idea that there are fewer people reading we don't take it terribly seriously, because well, we're reading and some people we know are reading so it will be okay. In fact, statistics show that fewer people are reading and fewer people will continue to read unless there is a push give a love of reading back to children. We have drained the life out of it with testing and reading levels and time limits, etc. It's time to give kids back imagination and fun! The love of a good book!!

In that vein, I remember what gave me a LOVE for reading: my second grade teacher used to read aloud to us. Specifically she read the Boxcar Children and Ramona the Pest. Her dramatic readings took me to the school library where I began my own forays into the many beloved titles.

What gave you a love for reading? 

Reading habit

"Sound this word out" the teacher pointed at the blackboard pointedly. 

"Dog" the little girl read.

"You didn't sound it out first," bad habits are so hard to break the teacher concluded inwardly.

"I don't know how to sound it out. I know what the word says so I read it," responds baffled girl.

"Then you don't know how to read." The teacher sniffed and moved on to explain the method of Phonics. 

The child learned the mysteries of Phonics but she also knew that she had known how to read all along, that it was merely the sillyness (she didn't yet know what narrow-mindedness was) of the teacher that made her think that only her way was reading. So the girl learned phonics... 

and she learned to love to read in spite of the teacher's belittling gaze. And one day she volunteered to help in the school library where she shelved the books and gazed over the wondrous titles that were kept there. She learned the Dewey Decimal system and she even made spine labels for her own little library at home. (organization is important, damn it!)

So that when she grew up and needed a job, it seemed natural that she would look for a job at the library. But she never expected to work at the Big City Library. And when she first laid eyes on the library it hardly seemed like a library with it's marble floors and oak desks, and nary a book to be seen. 

If you turned the right corner you might find a helpful soul to tell you where the books are...

And you might spot a person put a book in a slot here. Although at first she thought the people were simply kept in cages to model Work but after some moments, it was shown to be a return machine. But this machine meant that fewer people were needed (of course!) and the woman wonders if she will get a job here after all. The machine returns the books so they can cut the cost of the library further and eliminate jobs. Seems like a good thing at first - except she learns later that most of the time if people's books are not returned properly it is computer error not people error. 

As she tours the building there is a crowd of people whom she guesses are customers but none of them have books... they are staring at computers! and there are no books on the floor by the computers, just table after table of computers. Jobs are found on computers these days and the public needs jobs but what is it that they do here? she wonders. 

More wandering, she finds places she cannot enter because they are doing construction because the library is now 15 years old, and apparently it now needs a makeover! Maybe there are more machines for this part of the library. There are fewer books, she feels sure.   

At the end of the day, she leaves the library and looks back at the tall brick building. The architect had 

designed a building that would be sure to impress and astound...  

But she wonders if anyone gave any thought to less ostentatiousness, less boldness, less gaudiness...

and any consideration at all to what a building that held books for booklovers would look like?

The Book Nerd strikes again & A Visit to Fahrenheit Books

By the time I was in third grade I was a good reader. And I read vociferously. I got a book each month from the book of the month club but that was hardly enough to keep me satisfied as I often had that read before the weekend had ended. Reading was my whole world and my greatest memories from my childhood are of the books I read, most often deep into the night, long after a ten or eleven year old should have been tucked safely between sheets with the lights long out.  

Driving downtown to a favorite bookstore

Typically girl, I read about horses and dreamt of horses and wanted to own a horse. A friend of mine had a horse and she loved reading about horses so once in a while we got together at my house had a sleepover so that we could read out loud to each other, late into the night. 

Fahrenheit Books is on Broadway-- just north of Alameda. 

As I grew older, my fantasy of owning a horse lessened but reading still played a central part in my life,