January 26, 2007

Memory Game

I just finished reading Robert Gray's Playing the Bookshop Memory Game Online printed in todays issue of Shelf Awareness. It's the game in which you the customer presents a book seller with a mystery of matching you up with the right book, based on memory and clues.

This game is what prompted me to set up the Q&A's, (Perhaps I should change the name of the category. "Mystery Book Hunt"?) You ask the question and I do my darnedest to try and answer, or find someone that can.

In the article Robert said — What booksellers really do, on our own or with colleagues, is play tag-team mnemonics. Customers enter the store with raw materials, garnered from conversations, misremembered ads and half-heard radio interviews. They deliver the clues and want rapid, even magical, revelation of the title. They scatter beads across the counter and ask us to hand them back a necklace . . . immediately.

Do they have the same expectations online? I suspect they give up more quickly there.

Personally I don't think a person gives up any more quickly online than off-line, instead, if I go by responses I receive for my efforts, I believe that people are willing to wait a little longer for an answer online. This doesn't go for everyone, or search engines wouldn't be as popular as they are. It just depends on the answer you're looking for.

When you're looking to make a purchase, its best to take your time and make sure you have the right book, than to jump at instant results. Unless the instant results matches what your looking for.

Posted by derstaffo at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2006

Local Books - the history and litriture of a socially and geographical contained people

After writing the answer to the Q&A on "Japan Today and Tomorrow", I got to thinking about the social implications of books.

Books can be used to help move a country in a particular way. Whether its banning them or making sure that they say a specific thing.

Then today just because I was thinking about it, when my friend received a book from his brother as a Christmas present about his hometown area in Texas the 2004 Christmas snow. I decided to write about local books.

Local books contain the history, folklore, customs, and social practices of a region. They can be a what, who, why, where, and when to help guide people moving into or through an area. A well done book can tell how times have changed. And can fill in some of the generation gap for those that may have lived there all their lives.

Being in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains and only about a 100 or so miles from the Adirondacks, I get to see many books that has to do with local history or traditions. How different the two regions are even though they are both in New York, and yet how similar they are.

Many of these books are self published or published by small obscure independent publishers in the authors area and have short print runs. These books aren't just relegated to local history or folklore but also include cookbooks, craft and hobbies, event, and even some tour guides that are written by privet, commercial and municipalities authors.

The older they get the harder it can be to find them. Of course the market can be small too. But they can be a boon to those that want to know why do they think about that, like that.

Posted by derstaffo at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)